White patriotism in America is different than black patriotism, but it is still patriotism.
White Americans love their country. They are quite willing to die for it. You see that in the war in Iraq, which has been fought without forcing anyone into the military. Even with all the blacks in the military, it would not have been possible unless whites loved their country too.
John McCain is a true patriot. Even though he is white, almost everything I said about black patriotism can be applied to him. He served his country in war, he has worked to make it better through public service and he knows that a true patriot does not turn a blind eye to the injustice in his country but stands up to it. He knows that patriotism is something deep, something more than merely liking one’s country.
Cindy McCain, his wife, on the other hand, was not a patriot when she said:
I have and always will be proud of my country.
Apparently that sort of blind pride in America is fairly widespread among white Americans, even those with good educations, because so few of them pointed out how utterly brainless and heartless her words were.
You see this same blind pride at work when people think that saying bad things about America means you must hate it, that you are not a true American.
This sort of blind pride is far more common among whites than blacks.
Blacks know all too well from their own experience that America is far from perfect, that injustice comes built in. Even blacks as successful and rich as Michelle Obama know it. You do not have to live in a ghetto to see it.
Many whites, on the other hand, live in an apple-pie America. Their own power and white privilege protects them from much of the bad that goes on in the world – much of it, in fact, done in their name to make their lives so nice and comfortable. But they do not see that.
They have been brought up to turn a blind eye to the injustice and suffering their lives are built on.
They do not understand that the ghettos are so screwed up because of them. They do not understand that the Middle East is so screwed up because of them. They do not understand that the Twin Towers are gone – because of them.
They do not see that. Because they do not want to.
Because they do not want to give up their Disney World lives. Yes, Disney World lives, because compared to most of the world that is what it is. Because it is not rooted in anything honest and true.
Cindy McCain was 53 years old when she said those words. Not 17 but 53. How in the world can someone live 53 years on this earth and not see the evil done in her name? It is far from being an accident.
See also:
I really like your blog — it’s become daily reading for me.
But as a white guy, I have to say I am really offended by the statement that “that the Twin Towers are gone – because of [white people].” I absolutely agree that the US has made plenty of mistakes, and done plenty of bad things, in our foreign policy. See for example invading Iraq. But there are two huge problems with your statement:
First, you’re treating the US government and white people as one and the same. Yes, US govt leaders are overwhelmingly white, but whites do not overwhelmingly support everything the US govt does overseas.
But more importantly, you are blaming the victim. The fact that the US govt has done bad things overseas does not even slightly reduce the evil involved in murdering 3,000 civilians. Shifting the blame for those deaths away from the people who spent years plotting them is completely inappropriate.
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If you come home every night and beat your wife and then one day you come home and she shoots you dead, it is still murder on her part, but it was not like you did not have it coming.
The 9/11 hijackers are not innocents, but then neither are the Americans.
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Killing 3000 unarmed men, women and children is an evil and cowardly act. Just ask the people in Hanoi. Or Hiroshima. Or Dresden.
Americans have precious little reason to complain when others play by their rules and follow their example.
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“Americans have precious little reason to complain when others play by their rules and follow their example.”
I was jumping up and down after I read this. When America does things like this, people say it is patriotic but when other countries do it is a different story.
There was this WM that said he hardly thinks he has white priviledge when he is a struggling college student, poor and that it has not made his life easier and helped him. He doesn’t deny that white priviledge exist. Are there Whites that don’t receive or benefit from white priviledge and others that do? Does it apply to only a small group of people (rich, famous, etc)?
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“There was this WM that said he hardly thinks he has white priviledge when he is a struggling college student, poor and that it has not made his life easier and helped him. He doesn’t deny that white priviledge exist.Are there Whites that don’t receive or benefit from white priviledge and others that do?”
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I think white privilege is not that you’re supposed to “receive” something but rather you are not denied something b/c of your pigmentation unlike other minorities. This struggling college student won’t be denied of college loans, he won’t be denied of financial assistance, he won’t be denied of the benefit of the doubt if he enters a store or pull over by cops.
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1. High schools in white neighbourhoods are better in general than those in black ones, so he was probably able to get into a better college than his black counterparts across town.
2. He will not have to stay in school as long to make a given income.
3. It will be much easier for him to find work and the sort of work he wants when he gets out.
4. The police are not going to stop him and “confuse him for someone else”, etc.
For most white people, white privilege kicks in in a big way when they look for work and look for a house. And, if they start a business, in getting bank loans and insurance.
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See who the first wife of John McCain is working for now and who she contributed to
http://webofdeception.com/#carolsheppmccain
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” They do not understand that the ghettos are so screwed up because of them. They do not understand that the Middle East is so screwed up because of them. They do not understand that the Twin Towers are gone – because of them. ”
” Killing 3000 unarmed men, women and children is an evil and cowardly act. Just ask the people in Hanoi. Or Hiroshima. Or Dresden. ”
you begin by differentiating between the artificial social constructs of white patriotism and black patriotism and then apparently move to the assumption that whites alone or some manifestation of white privilege effectuated the killing of persons in new york city, hanoi, hirsohima, and dresden. please share with us how you came to this conclusion.
you apparently postulate:
there were no nonwhite soldiers in hanoi. there were no nonwhite soldiers participating in the pacific theatre in anticipation of the bombing of hirsohima and nagasaki. there were no nonwhite soldiers in the european theatre in anticipation of the bombing of dresden in february 1945.
i must assume that you mean by the twin towers reference that some manner of imperialism by the united states induced enemy forces to hijack passenger airplanes and destroy the towers, with the result that thousands of persons are murdered. even if we allow for this extrapolation i must ask: were there no nonwhite little eichmanns in the twin towers seven years ago.
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” The 9/11 hijackers are not innocents, but then neither are the Americans. ”
thank you greatly for acknowledging that the persons who hijacked passenger airplanes and incinerated 3000 persons were not irreproachable innocents.
i wonder if you can help us understand the equation above.
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If any black pilots dropped bombs on Hanoi or Dresden I would be very surprised – and I would be very interested in knowing their names and knowing more about them.
Not that it matters one way or the other for my present argument. It is just something I am curious about.
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Time and again America does bad and evil things in the world. Time and again white people benefit from it. And time and again whites refuse to own up to the evil they have done and act all innocent. All the while enjoying the benefits, like cheap land or cheap oil.
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Most of the 9/11 hijackers came from two countries: Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The people in those country hate Americans. Why? Because America supports the evil men who rule there and keeps them in power – in order to protect Israel and keep the price of oil down.
But when they strike back at America in the only way they can, Americans act all innocent.
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Blacks have a part in shaping and carrying out American foreign policy, however small. But it is whites who are being blind about what is going on. I cannot imagine any black person saying what Cindy McCain said.
If you can find a black blogger who agrees with Cindy McCain, please give me the URL. I would love to read that blog.
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” If any black pilots dropped bombs on Hanoi or Dresden I would be very surprised – and I would be very interested in knowing their names and knowing more about them.
Not that it matters one way or the other for my present argument. It is just something I am curious about. ”
as i understand it you would have all whites who benefit from imperialism specifically or war in general, be individually responsible to that which is committed by america. plz explain how any number of white smucks in cincinnati are individually or collectively, directly responsible for the fire bombing of dresden in february 1945. it isnt that the smucks will not own up to responsibility. the smucks cant find dresden on a map.
there is a vast difference between the ruling powers which in the course of combat and revenge unnecessarily bombed dresden as the european theatre was closing down in 1945 and everyday persons back home who have none of the following attributes: 1) knowledge of the intended target, 2) knowledge of the date of attack, 3) knowledge of battle strategy.
there is plenty of blame to go around for atrocities in dresden, nagasaki, hiroshima, kolyma, rwanda. to pin this blame of everyday working class smucks in cincinnati or seattle or branson is as ill advised as to argue whether any combat pilots were black.
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” The 9/11 hijackers are not innocents, but then neither are the Americans.”
what you appear to be saying is that the americans who died in the twin towers at time of the attacks deserved to die as instruments of american imperialism
ward churchill: As for those in the World Trade Center… Well, really, let’s get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire – the “mighty engine of profit” to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to “ignorance” – a derivative, after all, of the word “ignore” – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I’d really be interested in hearing about it.[1]
do you agree that braying into cell phones and power lunches directly led to the rotting flesh of infants. i ask this because this appears to be your argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Justice_of_Roosting_Chickens
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Roger said “it isnt that the smucks will not own up to responsibility. the smucks cant find dresden on a map.”
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That’s the problem, the powers that be can easily manipulate the masses to inadvertantly support an imperial war a.k.a War on Iraq.
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” The 9/11 hijackers are not innocents, but then neither are the Americans.”
what you appear to be saying is that the americans who died in the twin towers at time of the attacks deserved to die as instruments of american imperialism
ward churchill: As for those in the World Trade Center… Well, really, let’s get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire – the “mighty engine of profit” to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to “ignorance” – a derivative, after all, of the word “ignore” – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I’d really be interested in hearing about it.[1]
do you agree that braying into cell phones and power lunches directly led to the rotting flesh of infants. i ask this because this appears to be your argument.
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The question of patriotism is a good bit more complicated than people often care to admit. Particularly in the US where nationality is civic rather than ethnological. The linked to piece below attempts to explore this, albeit not in a racial context.
http://wbreevesrite.blogspot.com/2007/07/right-wing-amerika-haters-and.html
As for the Ward Churchill business. One need not accept Churchill’s argument to recognize that in any society that claims a democratic or representative form of Government, the citizenry are of necessity implicated in the actions of that Government. This in no way implies a justification for the indiscriminate killing of civilians since the degree of personal culpability can only be determined on an individual basis.
This is why the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima would still be classifiably as attrocities even if it could be argued that the German and Japanese people were in control of their respective governments, which they manifestly were not.
Nevertheless, actions have consequences. Refusing to recognize the connection between US actions abroad and violence directed against US interests and its citizens is an exercise in willful blindness which actually places the population at greater risk.
If you’re interested in my take on the Churchill controversy, it can be found at the link below.
http://wbreevesrite.blogspot.com/search?q=%22ward+churchill%22
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Right: 9/11 was an evil and cowardly act. The people in the Twin Towers did not “deserve” to die. And yet for Americans to put on this shocked innocence is a bit too much. Sorry, but they had it coming. That and more. To not see that is to be dangerously blind.
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Those schmucks in Cincinnati:
Americans vote for their governments and fight in its wars so, yes, they can be blamed for what it does. Someone is flying those planes and dropping those bombs. Someone made the decision to destroy Dresden, a decision the president had to agree to at some level. And millions of people voted for that president to be put in the White House. Dresden was not an “accident” or, like they say in New York, a “mistake”. No madman took over America and made it do those things against its will.
If the powers that be brainwash the masses, that is no excuse. Those schmucks are grown men. They are old enough to know to use their own heads and not believe everything they are told. They are not children.
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I fully agree with you, abagond.
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I like this analogy very much.
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You are so right on abagond
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