I'm sitting here reading the news via Google when I find this quote, which happened to also be the headline:
I'm blacker than Obama.I'm sitting here rather amazed by the fact that he had the nerve to say that. There is a fine line between courage and stupidity, I suspect that Blagovich has flirted with it many a time. Talk about political suicide and I think that his picture is going to be the first that pops up for poster child. We'll put aside the whole pissing on the President thing. I'm not a big fan of the President but you've got to at least respect the office, which clearly didn't happen here. That, however, doesn't seem to matter too much in the eyes of the populace at large.
Where do I begin? If Blagovich is truly from the impoverished background that he claims, you'd think that he'd show a little more compassion and a little more pride in the successes of others who came from it. It doesn't even really look like he's claiming to be a person who rose up from poverty when you think about it, but rather having lived in the midst of it and letting people jump to that conclusion. Why do I say that? Well, if you have ever used a laundromat, you know that it's incredibly expensive to go wash your clothes, even if it is one of the more inexpensive ones. Hubby and I drop roughly 80 dollars every two weeks to wash clothes. And that's not including the cost of gasoline to drive there, laundry soap, or various other minor details that would be included into it. That's just to put the clothes into the washing machines and dryers.
Consider the cost of water, power, and the other factors that go into the overhead of a laundromat versus the sheer volume of money spent there by a functionally captive customer base (like in the poorer sections of the inner city where the general practice is to use the laundromat because you can't afford your own washer and dryer) and it's easy to see that they make money fairly easily. He can't say he grew up a poor man when you've got income flowing fairly easily and in a dependable fashion, compared to the neighbors who are struggling to find work and are about to have their unemployment run out, but still need to pay YOU money to wash their clothes. I could go on, but I think it's pretty clear what the picture I'm painting here is.
Now, we've got this false image of 'hey, I grew up poorer then he did!' going on and Blagovich is trying to say that this equates to the experience of the black man in urban America. Hey, I'm a white country girl and even I know that the experience is going to be dramatically different. I've seen racisim in action and it's a disgusting thing. I've seen black people get treated like crap because they looked different then everyone else in the room and were believed to be inferior because of a laundry list of stereotypes that haven't changed since the days of Jim Crow.
It didn't matter that the black man in question had a degree from a prestigeous college, a good job, and in all respects was a pillar of the community. He still got proverbially spat on and treated like he was an ignorant, uncultured sub-human wretch who was some how incapeable of understanding subjects like economics or politics. Ironically enough, the black man in question had a political sciences degree and had minored in economics when he was at college, actually teaching classes at a local junior university. Because he wasn't dressed in a 3 peice business suit and carrying a briefcase, however, he was treated like he was one of the lowest of the low. Blagovich shouldn't go around and say that he was worse off or something else like that because he'll never have that strike against him by society at large.
We, as a society, tolerate quiet and sly racism. It's changed some, but it is still there. If anything, it has become more stealthy and subtle then it was before the Civil Rights movement. Now, I'm not saying that discrimination against people who are white doesn't happen. It does. It happens and is just as ugly as discrimination against people who are not white. Society, however, acts that discrimination against people who are not white is acceptable if it is not overt and too loudly voiced. A slur said quietly is just as hurtful as one screamed loudly, and just as much cause for shame.
I would contend that Blagovich's most recent nonsense laid bare his own racisim. Why do I say that? Because he had the nerve to say that his petty experiences are the same as a culturally approved set of biases against a person on the basis of their skin color. If you want to wave the flag that you came from poverty, that's one thing. You can play the game of 'my daddy is poorer then your daddy' all day. You bring race into it and it makes it very clear that you believe that racism is fine because you're acting as one yourself. You are calling attention to a difference in skin color and attempting to make it into a negative thing.
At one point, I just thought that Blagovich was the village idiot of Chicago and Illinois. Now, I'm certain of it. I don't think his daddy taught him that a wise man will be quiet and a fool will open his mouth and prove it. Must be it got lost in the lessons on hair styling or something, because I've got a feeling there's a lot of common sense that his parents taught him which he has just thrown out the window.
Aside from all that... I think I feel a little better for ranting about that. I'm still kinda ticked off but purging it helped some. Just expected it to be only a few short sentences and it turned into a full blown rant. Heh, some days work out like that, I guess. Now to drink up another cup of coffee and go thru the mail.
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