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July 31, 2003 - Listen, no one has said it yet, so we might
as well be the first: Al Gore probably lost the election
because Joe Lieberman was on the ticket.
Yes, we know when people answered polls they said Joe being Jewish
wouldn't be a factor - even that it was a good thing, his strong
faith. If you asked if race would stand in the way of people
voting for a black man, you would get the same polite, dishonest
answer.
Not a single person or paper that I know of. No one said the
obvious. Al Gore lost the entire South, even his home state of
Tennessee. No one said it.
With an election so close, you mean to tell me no one realized there
are at least a few hundred thousand - more like some millions - of
anti-Semites (varying in degree from strong to mild) in America who
voted for Bush to keep the Jew out of the White House?
No? There aren't millions? Joe's Jewishness didn't cost
Gore any real number of votes?
Right. And the reason the South is so solidly Republican at
the moment has nothing to do with racism. In fact, racism is
dead in the South - faded out after the sixties or so. Right?
Well, we at The Moderate Independent are people who like to deal in
facts, not speculation. So, we got the straight scoop from
first-hand experiences.
The Moderate Independent set out with a group consisting of two
Mexican people, and two white people (I don't know if they were from
the Caucuses for sure, so we'll just say white) to experience the
polite, accepting world we are constantly told the South currently
is by TV, movies, our press, and politicians.
Site one: The Waffle House in Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina.
Mission: get some breakfast at this breakfast restaurant.
Result: Well, 50% success, but don't think that gives this
restaurant a 5 out of ten in our review.
This was not a place for white people. That was made clear to
us the second we walked in the door.
How?
"This ain't a place for you," the white people in our group were
told by the minority lady who worked there. The Mexicans in
our group were given a table right away.
We refused to believe that this lady meant it, so we said that we
were hungry and were going to sit.
The table got set without the lady who set it lifting her head to
look at us at any point. Then, we sat, and sat, and sat.
Our friends had their order taken no problem at their table.
We were not going to be served no matter what we did.
Finally, we gave up and started to leave.
The lady who had greeted us so nicely offered, "Yeah, take your
white asses on down the street." For those who were
questioning whether this really was all about racism, your question
is answered I would think.
Take our white asses on down the street. It is almost hard to
imagine that this was reality and not some poorly written, racist
movie trying to make minorities look bad. But these are the
simple facts.
The Waffle House in Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina does not make the
Moderate Independent top 100 places to have breakfast list for this
year. Nor does it fit the nonsense, "There's not really any
racism left in the south," sales pitch we are fed.
We tried another place.
Site two: JC Penney's Department Store in Johnson City,
Tennessee.
Mission: buy some things from that business that exists to
sell things to people.
Certainly a major chain wouldn't get involved in deliberate, clear
racism, would it?
This time, turn the checkerboard the other way. The white
people in our group had no problems, charming time, good service,
friendly southern hospitality.
The Mexicans in our group were not allowed to make any purchases.
As soon as they brought their chosen items up to the cash registers,
the cashier would say the register is closed. If they asked
how they could be closed when they just rang up people ahead of
them, then simply shut the register and walked away. This
happened at two different registers before they finally gave up.
I mean, this is dire - what if our Mexican friends really needed
some mid-priced, out of style, low-quality fashions to wear?
The massive divide in the nation politically comes from somewhere.
TV and the press constantly puts forth the polite nonsense about
everyone being so loving, tolerant, and accepting, and asserts that
racism only exists for a couple dozen or so Klansman types in maybe
one or two extreme and aberrant areas of Georgia or Alabama.
Raleigh/Durham is not the backwoods, and it was not the white people
who were being racist there. JC Penney's is not some
privately-owned exception, but part of a massive chain which would
never act openly racist unless the majority of its patrons in the
area not only accepted it, but expected it - demanded it from a
business that would serve their city.
This wink, wink, nudge, nudge dishonesty, pretending everything is
fine, that racism doesn't exist, is one of the main selling points
used by the Bush brand Republicans. David Duke, former leader
of the Klan, began the trend for the Republicans, showing all you
needed was a good hair cut, a proper suit, and polite rhetoric and
your past actions, true beliefs, and heinous ambitions will be
ignored. Say the right things, wear the proper attire, and you
will be taken seriously by the mainstream press, as Duke was when he
ran for Governor of Louisiana.
Two-shouldered bigotry, sexism, and dishonesty that pours over to
foreign policy, environmental policy - it is all the same. Say
the right things, say racism is wrong, sexism is wrong, say you
would never lie, say you will make the air cleaner, say you are
compassionate, say whatever you know is appropriate, but then, when
the coast seems clear, look back over your left shoulder to make
sure no one is there, then your right-shoulder to ensure the same,
and when you feel certain no one but your buddies are around, then
say what you really think and really intend to do. That, my
friends, is what we at The Moderate Independent have come to label
"two-shouldered" bigotry.
As I said, we at The Moderate Independent don't care much for
speculation. We have blue-eyed white people, Latinos, colored
people, Asian people, and guess what - we are going to be checking
you out. It doesn't matter if you are in the South, the Mid
West, the North East (hey, New England, you are not guilt-free
either,) and the West.
There are plenty of areas where racism is not serious - other places
in Tennessee and North Carolina we had no problems. But if you
are one of these racists - and I'm sure they don't realize how
pathetic, primitive, and out of place in the useful world they were
being at The Waffle House and JC Penney's - we will catch you, and
the public will know.
And this doesn't just go for businesses. People and
politicians, beware. The Moderate Independent has many people
you assume you can let your guard down around. That's the true
art of reporting, in fact. Not to ask confrontational, probing
questions, but to become in effect invisible, so you get to see
things as they really are when people drop their outer facades.
Racism is one of the main issues for the upcoming 2004 elections,
and we at The Moderate Independent will get to the bottom of it, and
determine how it is used by the candidates, and give you, as always,
the straight scoop behind the two-shouldered politeness the rest of
the press will more than willingly report as if it were fact.
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