Not Crazy; Just Racist

Wow. Michael Lind manages to write 2,000 words on how those horrible non-southern liberals are so mean and stupid for calling southerners crazy without once mentioning racism.

Your Texas upbringing to the contrary, Mr. Lind, no less authentic experts on southern culture, southern liberalism and southern racism than Molly Ivins (on the left) and Florence King (on the right) wrote frequently on the subject of southern insanity and how intractible and irreversible it is. To a true Southerner, "You're crazy!" is not an insult; it's a badge of honor.

But the issue is not craziness - of southerners or anyone else. The issue is racism. The vicious, out-of-control, rabid, violent reaction of non-liberal southerners to this presidential administration is entirely logical and rational, when seen in the context of racism.

People who believe that non-whites are inherently stupid, criminal, violent and generally sub-human in every way naturally are going to react strongly to someone they believe is inherently stupid, criminal, violent and generally sub-human in every way being elevated to the American presidency.

Think about it from the horrid, evil but entirely rational perspective of racism: a member of group that has been enslaved, tortured, murdered, raped and denied all human rights for centuries by whites - especially southern whites - now has the power to execute the most horrific revenge on his people's oppressors.

When racists scream and cry that Obama is destroying the country with socialism, what they're really saying is that they're terrified he's going to treat them the way their ancestors treated Michelle's ancestors.

And they believe that he is, indeed, going to do exactly that because that's exactly what they would do in his place.

Their fear is rational not because President Obama is going to do anything remotely like that, but because their fear is grounded in the solid reality of their racism.

The stupid liberals and northerners who are dismissing these very real, very rational southern white fears with insults like "crazy" are as blind to the truth as you are, Mr. Lind.

Southerners who attack Obama for being Kenyan, or a socialist, or a Muslim, or a Nazi, or a spy from the Planet Zorg, are not crazy.

They're racists. The sooner President Obama, the Democratic Party, and liberal commentators start facing that fact and dealing with the racist reality on the ground, the sooner the "craziness" will end.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ...