Chapter 1 of White Supremacy on Its Deathbed: Gator Bait

Let's workshop Chapter 1 of my book-length lyrical essay (White Supremacy on Its Deathbed), which aims to promote true black excellence by exposing the harmful implications of mainstream antiracism

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Chapter 1: Gator Bait

America is one of the least racist places on Earth [according to how much bigotry our people have in their hearts and how much bigotry is enshrined in our laws. I]f you compare the soul searching the west has done on the issue of racism and slavery to elsewhere in the world, it's impossible to say that we're behind the curve rather than setting the standard and ahead of the curve. . . . America is the number one place that people of color around the world want to be. That's a fact. That's a fact of world migration patterns. . . . I think there will always be racism probably everywhere on Earth. I think it will dwindle as people become less and less ignorant, but it will never go away just like murder will never go away. . . . There's never been a multi-racial society on Earth without . . . bigotry. America and the west, [however], have been on the forefront of pushing back against [it].—Coleman Hughes[i]

In the age of racism there were more powerful black intellectuals, because nobody wanted them for their race. Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B. Du Bois, and many others were fully developed, self-made individuals, no matter their various political and ideological bents. Race was not a “talent” that falsely inflated them or won them high position. Today no black intellectual in America, including this writer, is safe from this sort of inflation. The white world is simply too hungry for the moral authority our skins carry. And this is true on both the political left and right. Why did so many black churches have to be the backdrop for Clinton speeches, and why should Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell have to hear Bush crow about their high place among his advisers?—Shelby Steele[ii]

We all know what white supremacy in its chilling heyday would do out of devotion to the torturous ruin of black kind: in our minds still smolder graphic images of gruesome ornaments dangling scarred from castration trees like warlock fruit, hard-R whites—trouser waist bands hoisted well above their belly buttons—cheesing in ear-to-ear self-satisfaction for the big-flash foldout camera as if posing next to the prize catch.

But to regrow the number and penetration of its tentacles to that of days halcyon in its eyes (days when postcards and cigar boxes and calendars casually bore images of black infants captioned with the phrase “Gator Bait”; days when it was no biggie to encounter ghoulish cartoons of grinning gators chasing spook-eyed black babies on tins of “dainty-morsel licorice drops” or on laundry products promising to “eat away the toughest discolorations”; days at least when blacks were more freely used for medical testing and were barred from testifying against white people and were not allowed to marry white people), what might white supremacy do from its deathbed today—an era when racism is considered chief among the discredited barbarisms of humankind (an exceptional crime, almost to the legal-procedure-suspending enormity we once saw in the Salem hysteria); an era when the terrorizing scarlet letter “R” cripples the soul (not to mention the chance for a career or a mate) more definitively than pretty much any other; an era when any protest of one’s complicity in racism, an obstinance termed “fragility,” pulses as the chief sign of one’s complicity; an era when merely defending those accused of today’s witchcraft, or even just urging the tears-addicted kangaroo-court judges to exercise prudence and keep in mind the precedence being set, suffices with rare exception for being a racist oneself?

Focusing for now on American blacks (until it can summon enough strength to take on other game, game many university students in the West today describe as “less-injured, less molested by whiteness”), what desperate depths might white supremacy plumb in its quest for black devastation in a time when blacks are nowhere blocked from opportunity as a matter of systemic injustice (let alone of institutional malice); a time when pro-black affirmative action has been the policy for over fifty years in a country that has made virtually every form of discrimination illegal and that defends—with both word and gun—the basic rights of all human groups; a time when almost a century ago Americans of all races rallied with profound pride around Joe Louis in his defeat of Max Schmelling, unwilling emblem of an Aryan ideology ranking Northern Europeans at the top of the racial hierarchy and blacks and Jews at the bottom; a time when over half a century ago almost all of America tuned in religiously to watch “All in the Family,” a sitcom with the central purpose of exposing the absurdities of prejudice and providing concrete proof for how—as Carroll O’Connor, the actor behind Archie Bunker, put it—even relatively tame bigotry can spoil the life of an otherwise loveable person; a time when almost a half a century ago the historical miniseries Roots, which traces the journey of Kunta Kinte from his capture in Gambia and forced labor in the US, attracted over its eight-night run Superbowl-level viewership (the final episode tuned in by over fifty percent of those with TVs in the US, which makes it the second-most-viewed TV-episode in terms of viewership percentage); a time when—even before California’s “Ebony Alert” system was put in place—a missing black child marshals enough urgent compassion that government agencies and grass-roots collectives in every major city search by land, air, and water (yes, even if at the expense of back-burnering the many missing indigenous children); a time when national news anchors earn major social capital by mocking, live on air, statues of founding US presidents as “backward rapists happy to whip beautiful black bodies, which they stole from mother Africa to labor on stolen land”?

What moves does white supremacy have left in a time when across even its western homeland individuals, orchestras, football teams, universities, museums, governments pull out all the stops (as if—indeed, seemingly because—their lives depend on it) to showcase an obsessive commitment to antiracism (flying banners, pathologizing whiteness, cutting white applicants—even in non-political areas like mechanical engineering and horticulture and glass-blowing and commercial aviation—based on diversity statements that fail to demonstrate enough activism against racism, making sure black people are overrepresented in almost every sector); a time where discovering you are black through 23andMe would be one of the biggest windfalls to confidence, credibility, cultural capital, public platforming, educational opportunity, career security, sexual options, and so on (especially if you are white, and thereby the brunt of the joke in media and public spaces); a time when James Baldwin’s claim that white people know one thing if they know anything at all—namely, “that they would not like to be black”—is completely outdated now that, as heralded by the reams of wannabes in the 1990s (think: suburban “wiggers”) and by the telling lyrics from white hip-hop artists (like Dru Ha’s 1993 line “Always get the pussy cuz I tell em that I'm Spanish”) and by the spurt of color-line crossers in the 2000s (think: Rachel Dolezal, Jessica Krug, Martina Big, and other coalmine canaries following early cases like Johnny Otis), more and more white people here would prefer, and actually try, to trade places (knowing damn well where the opportunities are, on top of having their whiteness long mocked effectively enough that they are even becoming sincere collaborators in the mockery)?

What hope could there be for white supremacy ever to rally again in a time where blacks (in many cases for almost a century) have been billionaires and prima ballerinas; lawyers and US Attorney Generals; chess grandmasters and doctors; America’s Dad (Bill Cosby) and America’s Mom (Oprah Winfrey); mayors and congressmen; US ambassadors and army generals; beloved national-news broadcasters and prime-time hosts; archbishops and CEOs; astronauts and US poet laureates; US Supreme Court justices and directors of science foundations; leads in the US opera and celebrated inventors; recipients of Pulitzers and National Book Awards and Nobel Prizes and Medals of Honor and Presidential Medals of Freedom and Academy Awards and MacArthur Genius Grants; US Presidents and Vice Presidents (who most people in the US would regard meeting as the crowning highlight of their lives); curators of a music-and-art culture that has become the dominant culture for all peoples across the globe—a time where blacks have even carved their mark on the Zamboni ice of the NHL?

What room does white supremacy have to grow in a time when, as social media shows us (as surely as it does that gorillas and octopuses have rich inner lives), the cultural divide seems to cut deeper than the racial divide—so deep, in fact, that southern Trump supporters, who haunt the nightmares of moderate right-wingers and antifa members alike and whose grandparents were as disgusted by miscegenation as most remain today about bestiality, embrace black people into the deepest folds of their ideological tribe (pro-life, law and order, Jesus, criticism about identity politics, worry about trans ideology being taught in grade school, concern about the stultifying effects of welfare programs, irritation over the incessant and ubiquitous pandering to left-friendly minority groups, and so on) and would have little problem marrying and having legitimate children with Candace Owens and Stacey Dash and Alveda King and Star Parker, on the one hand, or with Jesse Lee Peterson and Clarence Thomas and Kanye West and Larry Elders, on the other?

What viable launchpad (even if only in cultural attitudes and informal networks) could there be for white supremacy to blast off from in a time when the US military includes a variety of “antiracist” literature on its reading lists (notably Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist” and DiAngelo’s White Fragility) as part of DEI initiatives “to cultivate an anti-colorblind culture where all service members from historically-marginalized groups feel valued” and “where all service members become sensitive to the historical hardships of non-white groups and to the dangers posed by white-supremacist ideology”; a time when all the major institutions and corporations put so much weight in their hiring and firing decisions on the worker’s “active commitment to fighting the depredations of whiteness” that it is not too much of a stretch to wonder if soon those accused of being insufficiently antiracist will be unable to renew their passports; a time when “black” is a laudatory and celebratory term used to stress spitting regality (as in “How dare you talk to a black man like that”) and when “white” is a pejorative and condemnatory term used to stress spit-on deplorability (as in “I’m not listening to no white person”), a linguistic shift reflecting “the broader cultural and ideological shift towards celebrating blackness while dismantling the legacy of whiteness.”

What nubbin of a toehold could white supremacy possibly find in a time when even Disney, the cardinal barometer of what ideology really holds sway in the US, has gone through great pains—often quite kitschy, no doubt—to signal sorrow for the historical oppression of black people and a desire to “do better” in the future and to “learn from our nation’s regal Black voices”:

putting hypersensitive disclaimers of “problematic content” on its various shows (like The Muppet Show, which in one “egregiously regrettable” case features Johnny Cash adorned with the Confederate flag);

attaching advisory notes of apology to its various films for showcasing “white appropriation and unacceptably racist depictions” (films like Dumbo, which features a minstrelsy musical number performed by a crow name “Jim Crow” and faceless black workers singing—in what actually amounts to a hard truth the ignoring of which only helps perpetuate the problem—“When we get our pay, we throw our money all away");

blurring or drawing over or deleting “harmful scenes and characters” from its older productions (like some of the crow scenes in Dumbo or like portions of the “Pastoral Symphony" segment in Fantasia where a centaurette named “Sunflower” is shown polishing the hooves of the white centaurettes);

removing antiblack imagery from its theme-park attractions (like in the “Jungle Cruise” ride where Trader Sam has been transformed from a witchdoctor selling shrunken heads into a benign manager of the jungle’s “Lost and Found" and where—to dismantle the “abusive and traumatic suggestion” that blacks sit at the lowest rung of the racial hierarchy—the rhino pole scene no longer depicts a black explorer being at the bottom of the pole that a group of explorers climb at one point to escape a rhino);

making sure to step up black representation into Wakanda territories way beyond just Tiana (Disney’s first black princess) when it comes to its artistic creations and business ventures, on top of (a) pouring money into outreach programs aimed at acquisition of nonwhite talent and (b) trying its best to involve sensitivity consultants and black artists whenever the topics or settings or language concern black culture (so as to avoid, in the very least, regrettable fiascos like The Jungle Book’s King Louie, who arguably presents a patchwork of black stereotypes better covered over than ever brought to light);  

teaching children about the key ideas in the antiracist movement, as in when one black character in the show The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder charges a white character with “white fragility” for “being defensive about race” and then hands that character Robin DiAngelo’s New York Times Best Seller White Fragility (exact Random House cover and everything), directing him to turn to page 39 for some needed awakening about the various defense mechanisms whites use to avoid facing their inborn racism (silence, argumentation, certitude, and other forms of pushback against “beautiful Black bodies and their beautiful Black voices”);

participating in overt messaging about the dire importance of combating white supremacy, as in the “Juneteenth” episode of The Proud Family where various characters come together in a collective spoken-word performance about how black people are owed reparations because “this country was built on slavery (which means slaves built this country),” and about how black people “continue to earn reparations every moment [they] spend submerged in the systemic prejudice, racism, and white supremacy that America was founded with and still has not atoned for”;

premiering—after, of course, a global hoopla kicked up by its big-money social-media campaign and with the help of countless priming commercials talking about “black kings” and “black queens”—films like Black is King, which—even if not pushing the black supremacism suggested by the meaning of “king” (especially when set against the growing taboo against ever criticizing or upsetting “black voices”)—stresses the empowerment and global unity one can find in black pride (pride in the rich history of black excellence and creativity, “pride as appropriate as it is necessary given the equally rich history of oppression at the hands whites who only do more harm by finding pride in their own cultural heritage since it is so entangled with black oppression”);

compensating for its own sullied past, while doing its part to make up for the history of black persecution in the US, by coordinating various counter activities (from having employees read key figures in the antiracist movement to organizing “reeducation retreats” filled with days of diversity workshops on microaggressions and on why white pride is toxic whereas black pride is a must and on white privilege and on implicit racism and on the importance of patronizing black businesses and on white allyship and—most importantly—on “strategies to blunt the harms, and prevent the spread, of whiteness in both private and public spheres”).

Beyond the intergenerational bigotry passed down in isolated southern locales (like Harrison Arkansas, a former sundown town still featuring “unforgivable billboards” like “It's NOT racist to ♥ your people”), where even the most insular residents—increasingly connected to the wider world through social media—still cherish their favorite black celebrities (LeBron James, Beyoncé, Denzel Washington, Oprah) and still welcome—even if with initial hesitation—blacks into their church congregations (especially if they support Trump) and still have enemies and scapegoats against which they are happy to unite with blacks (trans ideology in grade school, coastal elites smearing Trump, and so on); beyond the heavy-handed generalizations and racial slurs whispered largely behind the closed doors of northern cities (like Newburgh New York) where black hypersexuality and hyperviolence and hyperundereducation and hyperwelfare and hyperaddiction ring loud and clear—beyond such meager showcases of deep-seated hostility toward blackness, what alchemy might white supremacy employ to rewind from the vanishing wisp it has become?

Beyond the gauche expectations we still hear at least in those towns whose furniture designs always remain about a decade behind (“Diani, can you teach us some hip-hop moves?”); beyond the tokenizing we still see in sororities (whose upperclassmen, wanting to avoid suspicion of racism, feel “the chapter could use a few more black faces”) and now even in more and more factions of the KKK, which—having drifted away from white supremacism, and instead toward the ideology that every race is entitled to feel proud of itself—has become increasingly open to recruiting blacks (just as it did to recruiting Italians in the second half of the twentieth century) who share their core concerns (about, say, the national dangers of immigration) and core beliefs (about how, say, character should count more than color) and core agendas (about how, say, July should be White History Month, a month to celebrate notable figures like Goethe and Shakespeare, and to honor the overcoming of adversities faced by certain groups like the Irish, and to celebrate the philosophies and technology that allowed the US to exist)—beyond such feeble expositions of animosity for black kind, what sorcery must white supremacy invoke to breathe (let alone to retake the nation)?

Beyond the spitting mouths of desolate seniors, powerless in the face of looming oblivion, abusing black nurses with racial epithets (hurled, typically, more to sting in doddering tantrum than out of any sincere sense of the inherent inferiority of blacks); beyond teachers calling upon a white student before a black student (in most cases today, if not merely random, a function of something as simple as the called-upon being more eager or, in the case of a teacher trying to draw the shy into the conversation, being less eager); beyond the word “nigger” carved into bathroom stalls (more likely out of a rebellious desire to shock and expel teen angst than any genuine hatred for an entire race); beyond the decreasing number of people who would not want their children to marry outside of their race (around five percent of Americans, and not all of whom have racism to blame for that desire); beyond the rare rallies of Klan members, whom all but a few thousand of us consider more of a farce than scientologists and flat earthers and “Lil” rappers combined (yes, even when they actually reject black inferiority and merely peddle white pride and racial separatism, as is true of a growing number staunch about how harming blacks is as morally problematic as harming whites); beyond the occasional “Karen” pushing a slow-moving black kid out of a crowded elevator with a “Come on, kid” (more likely as a matter of impatience bolstered by “ageism” rather than racism)—beyond such relatively risible squawks of “total war against black bodies,” what more might white supremacy do to soar once again now that both its formidable wings have been fractured into fragments?

Beyond the employers with (understandably) negative reactions to stereotypical black names like “La’Quantavia Johnson” (something that many employers compensative for—if not over-compensate for—and seems more likely to reflect class-bias than racial bigotry anyway); beyond the white Harvard student quietly thinking to herself that her black classmates are likely not there for the same reasons as she is (which is less and less frequent and is less and less accurate, but is more and more swallowed back as a sinful thought); beyond the people in many American homes who cannot quite put their finger on why they feel uneasy when the US President vows in a public address to appoint to the Supreme Court a justice no other race but black; beyond the Chinese ladies telling the black man with double-taking shock on their faces how impeccably he speaks Mandarin (a reflection mainly of how rare it is for outsiders to master the language); beyond the noticeable number of potential donors more reluctant to give money to black-male canvassers (a difference largely steered by “urban look” as opposed to skin color, especially when it comes to people in nonurban areas clued into the reality of overrepresentation in violent crime by black males with an urban look); beyond the empty and kitsch marketing signals given out, as expected in our time of black idolatry, by Target and Walmart and all the rest of the opportunistic retailers especially during Juneteenth and Kwanza and Black History Month (a month that, although an important transitional measure like affirmative action, is largely unnecessary since black historical events and figures have been blended into year-round history lessons)—beyond such comparatively pathetic expressions of antiblack racism, what hidden reserves of underdog spirit might white supremacy draw from to escape its pummeled corner (where the towel, unless we are mistaken, already seems like it has been thrown)?

Beyond the sporadic store clerk, especially in areas of high black crime, being a bit more watchful through surveillance cameras and convex mirrors (a statistical caution, an understandable one, almost never born out of a sense that something sinister plagues an entire race by birth, but rather out of a sense—which Muhammad Ali would often express with an analogy between white people and rattlesnakes—that “I don’t know which of the admittedly rare few of them that mean me harm actually do mean me harm since they all look alike”); beyond the many people and businesses, especially in the wake of the supposedly “pro-black” project to defund and demonize the police, fleeing various cities that harbor large black populations (which is less a matter of direct racial prejudice and more a matter of crime and neighborhood deterioration); beyond the diminishing instances of black people being more likely to get higher-interest rate loans (which is less a matter of direct racial prejudice and more a matter of lower credit score); beyond the rare instances of black people’s pain threshold being overestimated by hospital staff (bombarded like us all by the thug and sapphire images so often glamorized in black media); beyond a relative handful of officers and judges who, especially given weeks overworked in precincts overrepresented in black crime, blur together black faces instead of looking at each face afresh (as, in fact, almost all these officers and judges, not thinking there is anything wrong with black people as an inborn fact, will sincerely admit they ought to)—beyond such relatively tame displays of antiblack violence, what more might white supremacy do to grow from the mere Ursula-polyp to which it has been reduced (prepared perhaps to make you’re-going-down-with-me kamikaze moves if only out of a sense that, likely to die off anyway, it has little left to lose)?

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[i] https://www.biola.edu/blogs/think-biblically/2023/bonus-a-christian-and-an-atheist-talk-about-god-and-race

[ii] https://www.cir-usa.org/2002/11/the-age-of-white-guilt-and-the-disappearance-of-the-black-individual/

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