NPR.com brings me such hope, on a consistent level. They take on relevant issues and often, even usually, support their viewpoints with scientific studies. This particular morning it brought joy for more than one reason. This is how the article began:
“Jeromy Brown, a 46-year-old teacher in Iowa, considers President Trump a white supremacist.
“If the shoe fits, then say it, and the shoe fits him,” Brown said, while waiting in a photo line at an Elizabeth Warren rally in August. “Why should he be excused from that label?”
Brown, like many white liberal voters, appreciates that some Democratic presidential candidates have begun explicitly referring to Trump as a white supremacist. His top choice, Warren, told The NPR Politics Podcast in August that “when the white supremacists call Donald Trump one of their own, I tend to believe them.”
The article went on to discuss this phenomena Beginning around 2012, polls show an increasing number of white liberals began adopting more progressive positions on a range of cultural issues. “These days, white Democrats (and, in particular, white liberals) are more likely than in decades past to support more liberal immigration policies, embrace racial diversity and uphold affirmative action. Researchers say this shift among white liberals indicates a seismic transformation in the last five to seven years and not just a blip on one or two survey questions.
“The white liberals of 2016 or even 2014 are very distinguishable from the white liberals of the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s,” said Zach Goldberg, doctoral student at Georgia State University who has been studying the change.”.
The heavily and thoroughly researched piece used graphs to illustrate their findings, summarizing the situations “Some metrics even seem to be suggesting that white Democrats express more woke attitudes than their fellow brown and black Democrats.
Goldberg cited the 2018 American National Election Studies pilot survey, which found that 78% of white Democrats thought having more races/ethnicity in the country make it a “better” place to live. Fifty-seven percent of black Democrats, and 63% of Hispanic Democrats said the same.”
Then it the article reports upon something which causes me absolute delight. “Starting about 2016 … white liberals actually rate non-white groups more positively than they do whites,” explained Engelhardt. “Usually, it’s the opposite.”
In other words, we white liberals like the “others’ more than we like our fellow whites. I am so proud to be able to call myself a white liberal – for two reasons, I am white and I am liberal Remember, not too far back, not many years ago Liberal was almost a swear word – a word of such derision.
Derision: mockery, ridicule, jeering, jeers, sneers, scoffing, jibing, taunts; disdain, disparagement, denigration, disrespect, pooh-poohing; sneering, scorn, scornfulness, taunting, insults; contempt, vilification, obloquy; lampooning, satire; ragging, teasing, chaffing, raillery; archaic contumely. ANTONYMS respect, praise.
And it must be remembered that disdain, disrespect, pooh-poohing, and vilification occurred before Trump the Rump (as I tenderly call him). I am convinced that I came back to this country at exactly the right time and timing is everything.
But it is interesting that it was social media and the internet that brought back the respect to white liberalism, according to Goldberg. .
“[White liberals’] exposure to injustice inequality has been heightened because of the internet,” said Goldberg. “The moral buttons of white liberals are being more frequently pressed.”
Engelhardt agrees, and pointed to one specific incident as a potential catalyst — when a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.
“This kind of renewed attention to discrimination is new and novel for white liberals,” he said, explaining why there has not been as large of a shift among people of color on these survey questions, in part because they didn’t need social media videos to know what was already happening in their communities.
There is soon to be an election in this fair land and there is someone utterly and terrifically worthwhile to vote for and support. Elizabeth Warren. I am convinced that the past will not reveal that she painted her face black or brown. Perhaps she put on a little pale beige foundation from time to time but that is not the same. Sometimes I am so funny that I even laugh out loud at my own jokes.
If I remained in Canada who is there to support? I would willing support the National Democratic Party but the guy dropped out of the race. Huh?
This is the utterly unbelievable thing about me life. I was one married to a Republican – a bigoted man who rather successfully hid his true nature in the courtship days but then he ‘came out’. I suffered with that man for eighteen long years but with no kids and a prenuptial agreement I escaped whole. He generously waived spousal support although he never worked during the marriage. His inheritance supported him, I did not. We had no community property and we split expenses in half. And he had the effrontery to be a Republican – he was actually poor white trash. But I left the marriage went back to school(s) went to London and I have an exquisitely wonderful life living in San Francisco, in Hayes Valley and can proudly call myself a White Liberal. I guess there is a God.
The photograph is that of my left knee. It went on Instagram with the following caption.
My knee only 38 days post op. Resting on ice machine. Physical therapy, ice machine and Care Giver are the secrets.
