as small as a world and as large as alone

3:00pm July 2, 2015

clatterbane:

Actually, reminded of another reason that I get exasperated at people wanting to scapegoat Others they see as rednecks for basically every social problem. (Quote source through the link.)

The white, Virginia elite of the time was immersed in the idea of perpetuating and protecting the purity of the “American race” (i.e., Anglo-Saxon Whites). This socioeconomic elite group wanted to maintain their “traditional Southern identity” while also embracing modern progressive ideology. The eugenic movement offered an avenue to pursue both of these notions simultaneously. Through the embrace of eugenics as a progressive science and ideology, Virginians were able to modernize their identity while maintaining the purity of their state through the coerced sterilization of minorities and undesirable whites alike (Dorr 2000, p. 262).

This was a very influential movement, and it was considered “progressive” at the time.

Kind of like with the main forces behind continuing segregation. Or the number of US presidents and other high level politicians who were KKK members, back in the day. Or, you know, that horrible Bank of America loan officer who was actually assaulting Black kids in that gated community in McKinney–and the police were too busy also attacking children to say boo.

Some of the actual rednecks may be obnoxious and sometimes dangerous, but they just don’t have the power to accomplish much beyond personal obnoxiousness.

Though I do get an extra urge to slap the shit out of them sometimes, dealing with the type who are clawing for any way to feel better about their longer term situation through bigotry. That kind of obnoxiousness. Yes, I grew up around some people like that, and have actually gotten into fights with a couple of them. Kind of a long tradition for my family/community (and others like us), yeah. :/

When they were/are also largely excluded from that good old “traditional Southern identity”, as set up by the planter classes to begin with. As “the shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of anti-social whites of the South”, largely assumed to be of “degenerate Celtic root stock”. (In the actual words of “progressive” eugenicists who targeted them too. Within my older relatives’ lifetimes.)

Misguided and frankly horrible as some aspirations to power are there, they are still mainly aspirations. That doesn’t keep the subset of people like that from being awful to deal with, but they are still mostly getting played by the ones who really do have more power in society. Which makes me want to slap some individuals even more sometimes, because they’re getting just enough perceived benefits to willingly continue getting manipulated.

But yeah, another of those situations with a lot more complexity than often gets talked about. And it’s really counterproductive for modern “progressives” in particular to keep scapegoating the overtly racist rednecks as the only real problem, while ignoring the continuing systemic problems with actual power driving them.

Even when they’re not being nonselective with it, and just scapegoating everybody in whole large regions of the country for All The Problems. :-|

(It’s even worse when American rednecks get scapegoated by people in the main colonizing country that got those racist systems rolling in the first place; the WASPy “traditional Southern identity” there was absolutely no coincidence. When they’ve got the fucking EDL and BNP–who still don’t like the Irish that much–running around at home. And I stay kinda conflicted about getting more of a tan, with some day to day xenophobia. But, all of that is another story.)

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