This is for everyone who thinks Cliven Bundy “has a point.” Yes he does, and his point is racism.
I have heard it said that Bundy has a point, but it got lost in translation. There are those who believe that Bundy is right, but that he didn’t use acceptable language, and there are those who believe that Bundy is right, but that his views are suppressed by society. Well, Bundy’s views came across loud and clear. Nothing was lost. No one is suppressing anything. I would defend to the death his right to state his opinion, but he is dead wrong and I wont hesitate to say that his views are offensive. But he is free to express them, and he does.
Bundy is not a racist because he used the word “negro,” although that does show that he doesn’t give a rats rear end about the feelings of many of his fellow Americans that have darker skin pigment. He might really believe that there is nothing wrong with the word and that they should get over it. He might, but he shows us the real reason he doesn’t care- it is because he is a racist.
He is not a racist because he talked about black people or because he talked about slavery. But it is strange that slaves come to his mind when he sees 6 black people sitting on a porch, and we haven’t had slaves in this country in over 150 years. His other comments explain the reason why he immediately he makes this mental connection- it is because he is a racist.
For those who don’t understand, I am going to explain exactly why Cliven Bundy is wrong, and exactly why I say he is a racist. It is going to be a long article because he said so much.
First, I assume that by “negro,” he means people with dark skin pigment. When he says that he knows something about “the negro,” he is speaking of a diverse group of people that he doesn’t know as if they are one person. He is not only judging an entire race by the actions (or inaction) of a few people, which is a fairly common, although racist, instinct in all human beings, but he is actually calling everyone with dark skin, “the negro,” in the singular, and he sees nothing wrong with that. I have known a lot of dark-skinned people and each one of them is an individual. None of them are “the negro,” and none of them represent all dark-skinned people.
I know what you are thinking, you who think Bundy has a point. You are thinking about the militant blacks who have used the phrase “the white man.” You might even go google it and copy some quotes. You are being defensive and you are being distracted away from the uncomfortable topic at hand. Dare I say that you are also lumping all whites together and all blacks together and you are creating an us against them battle that you alone have invited. I am talking about one man”s racism- Cliven Bundy. Can’t you see the inherent racism in citing a black individual’s racism as a defense? If you said “everyone does it,” that would not excuse Bundy. So how can the comments of a few people who happen to be black excuse Bundy? Does it mean that Bundy was right about “them?” Does it mean that “they” deserve it? Of course not.
Back to Bundy: He tells us that he used to drive by a government housing project in North Las Vegas. . He doesn’t tell us anything else about it. I will assume that he is correct about it being government housing and that he is not just making an incorrect “welfare Cadillac” conclusion. He doesn’t tell us how much the place was costing residents (if anything) and how much it cost our government. He doesn’t tell us what the accommodations were like- what the resident got for his or our money. He doesn’t say how long ago he drove by, what the demographics of the area were, or what the job market for blacks was like. He doesn’t say whether he saw any white people living there or sitting on the porch.
I know the picture that comes to my mind, as an older white person who grew up in a segregated town in the south. It is a picture of black people living in government housing projects. But today I know that many, many white families also live in government subsidized housing and collect food stamps. It is completely unfair to think of government subsidies as a black phenomenon. I also know that the vast majority of black people are working, and are not living off the government. It is completely unfair to view the entire race as welfare recipients.
He states that the front door was always open. I have to admit that his point is lost on me here. I could speculate- maybe he thinks the door should be closed because they should not be home- they should be somewhere else. Maybe he generally disapproves of leaving the door open. I just don’t know. Just as I don’t know whether those people had air conditioning, whether they had a screen door, or why they were there. Maybe Mr. Bundy knows, but I doubt it. I know only that he makes assumptions, judges them negatively and attributes them to race, and then propagates his judgment across the entire race.
Bundy says that there were older people and kids on the porch- about a half dozen people- with nothing to do. He is dehumanizing these six or so people and painting the picture of a little mob. A half dozen is donuts, not people. He doesn’t say, two older women, two little boys and two little girls, or whatever they were. He doesn’t say how he knows that they have nothing to do. His lack of description makes me think that he is making assumptions with little information. He is certain that he knows all about these people and he seems to think that no further investigation is needed. I doubt if he knows anything at all. I doubt if he talked to them, or even got a good look at them. I don’t think he is lying about them, I think that he believes there is nothing more to know, and that is racist.
If this is a multi-family project then 6 people on the porch is not many. There are many, many reasons that 6 “older people and kids” might be sitting on a porch during the day. This could be an in-home day-care. This could be grandma watching the little ones and the school aged kids that are home sick. They might have plenty to do, but they are taking a break. They might choose to spend some time together on the porch visiting and enjoying the fresh air and the sights such as Bundy driving by. There are endless possibilities with the limited information that Bundy thought was important. Nothing that he saw tells him that they have nothing to do. But he thinks he knows that because he only sees about a half dozen “negros” doing nothing and it doesn’t sit well with him. That is racist.
Bundy doesn’t know anything about those people or their ancestry, yet he immediately thinks of slaves when he sees them. That is racist. They might not even have slave ancestors, but Bundy is wondering if they would be better off back in slavery, as if these very six people were slaves just last week. That is racist and extremely offensive.
The fact that he thinks it would be better for them to be slaves than free shows that he dehumanizes them. I grew up hearing about how many of the slaves were treated like members of the family, but that doesn’t change the fact that they were treated like horses by even the kindest slave holders. Some people treat their horses real good, but I don’t want to be treated like livestock by another human being. I would rather be free, and live in subsidized housing if I have to. If I feel that way, I imagine that most other people do too, regardless of their skin color. Bundy wonders whether they would be better off because he thinks of them as a herd rather than as individual people. That is racist. I doubt if he thinks that the white single mother in subsidized housing would be better off a slave in a cotton field. If I am right, if he has a double-standard, and that is also racist.
Then there are the comments about how “they” abort their babies and “they” go to jail. I would mock his poor grammar if I could remember exactly how he put it. Do I have to spell it out? Again, he is judging all blacks by the actions of some, and he is either assuming that whites don’t get abortions or go to jail, or that it is ok when they do it. He is painting people with dark skin with a very broad brush, and that is racist.
Confessions of a Southern White Woman 