I’ve been thinking about a sign in the yard of a house in my neighborhood. It’s more of a sculpture, really — a white dog taking a poop — very realistic, complete with poop coming out of the appropriate place. The word “NO!” is painted on the dog, and the message to passersby is clear: Do not let your dog do his business on this lawn!
I keep thinking about how the (probably very nice) person who put up this sign was so concerned that a dog would poop in their yard that they erected a permanent image of a dog pooping in their yard. It’s like an homage to a pooping dog. People walk by, see that sign, and think about a pooping dog. There’s probably some sort of life-lesson here, but it eludes me.
President Biden went to Buffalo, New York, last week, in the wake of the recent mass murder there, and gave a heartfelt speech about the dangers of white supremacy, saying that it was not who we are as a country and that we should reject it. He’s right, but we might as well put up a billboard on the White House lawn picturing a Klansman with “NO!” painted on his sheet, for all the good that speech is going to do.
Signs and speeches aren’t going to fix what’s wrong with this country. In too many states, a rabid right-wing minority has control of the reins of government. Poll after poll shows that the majority of people in those states (including Tennessee) favor some kind of gun control and some level of abortion rights. And yet, their legislatures keep passing no-permit-needed, open-carry gun laws, and forcing through measures that will outlaw abortion entirely, even in cases of incest, rape, or potential death of the mother. The real “radicals” are in charge in too many states, the will of the people be damned. How do we change that?
Consider Mississippi: Thirty-eight percent of the population is African-American, and yet there has not been an African American elected to statewide office in Mississippi for 130 years. That’s primarily because the state has a law that allows the legislature to pick winners of statewide races if the winner gets less than 50 percent of the vote. But it’s also because the Democratic party has done a crappy job of getting more African Americans registered to vote and involved in elections in that state.
The Buffalo shooter lived in a town with a 3 percent Black population. He had to drive 200 miles to find enough African Americans to kill en masse. It’s fair to assume this guy had only been exposed to the ideology of his rural community and the silo of his internet habits. It’s possible he’d never had a real conversation with a Black person, which made it easier for him to perceive them as “other,” rather than as fellow human beings.
Maybe the Democratic Party should take some of the millions of dollars it spends on TV ads and billboards supporting its candidates and put it into a massive campaign to register voters in red states — a reprise of the “freedom rider” movement of the early 1960s. Send busloads of young folks into rural areas and small towns. Have them knock on doors, set up voter-registration sites, speak to civic groups — introduce themselves and the party’s priorities to people who have only known progressives in theory, as evil “libruls,” rather than actual humans.
Maybe it’s idealistic, but the only real way to send white supremacists back to their caves is to elect people who will stand up and fight against them — and to get rid of elected officials who call them “patriots” and give credence to the Great Replacement Theory.
We really do need to “replace” white supremacists and their political enablers, and not just in theory. These evil creeps are spreading hatred, intolerance, violence, and death. They are bent on destroying the most diverse country on the planet and establishing a racist autocracy. It’s time to stand up and say no. These white dogs are crapping on all we hold dear.
