There’s an obvious ridiculousness to Congressman Mo Brooks’s comment about there being a “war on whites” that isn’t worth examining. In discussing the Republican party’s stance on immigration and how it hurts them with Hispanic voters, Brooks said this to radio host Laura Ingraham: “This is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It’s part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things. Well that’s not true.”
Yes, the first black president who rose to prominence by saying there was only one America, who ran on hope and change, has (frustratingly) attempted to govern through compromises that have lent legitimacy to the most reactionary of right-wing ideas, and has (infuriatingly) chastised black Americans for not defeating racism has also been laying the groundwork for a war on white people. Sly fox, that Barack Obama.
It’s clear Brooks wants to borrow the “war on women” language for his own purposes, but it’s also clear that he has nothing to support his claim. The idea that America wasn’t already divided when it comes to race before the Obama era is to ignore our entire history as a country.
I’d rather focus on another part of what he said. Still speaking on immigration, he told Ingraham: “It doesn’t make any difference if you’re a white American, a black American, a Hispanic American, an Asian-American or if you’re a woman or a man. Every single demographic group is hurt by falling wages and lost jobs.
“Democrats, they have to demagogue on this and try and turn it into a racial issue, which is an emotional issue, rather than a thoughtful issue. If it becomes a thoughtful issue, then we win and we win big. And they lose and they lose big.”
It’s true, we’re all hurt by falling wages and lost jobs (except black Americans can’t even catch a break when there’s an increase in jobs). It’s also true, however, that that has nothing to do with immigration. But it’s Brooks’s assertion that a “racial issue” is an “emotional” rather than “thoughtful issue” I most take umbrage with.
It’s the type of language used to dismiss the real-world concerns of those of us who live on the oppressed side of racism in America. Our issues aren’t considered serious intellectual questions but emotional reactions that are to be dealt with personally. But any discussion of jobs and wages that doesn’t consider race (or gender) is intellectually dishonest. To pretend there are not groups of people who are disproportionately disadvantaged under our current economic model and that our ongoing legacy of racism and white supremacy are not contributing factors means you are not actually looking for solutions. You’re turning the same blind eye that has allowed the suffering in the first place.
But let me also say that racism is an emotional issue, and that’s OK. It doesn’t make it any less serious. We owe it to the health of our country to directly confront the issue. Racism is actively killing us. Of course we’re emotional.
