The Elephant Rears its Head

After having the pleasure of reading Salon's and Alternet's  Sara Robinson's "Southern Values Revived" I was left with a feeling of  comfort that one often experiences after a large helping of macaroni and cheese or your comfort food of choice.  Sara Robinson has penned myriad streams of consciousness. One of her chosen topics has echoed through our heads for decades.  The Elephant in the American Room is Race, it has shaped the history, culture and economy of the United States.  White supremacy is woven into the American tapestry as much as the fight against said supremacy is apart of the American story.

How can MLK Day exist without white supremacy? Why do we think slavery started in the South? Opposed to America-bashing the identification of  and the acclimation of a central cause of amomie such as socially constructed racism is actually very healthy for America.  The current discourse around power in some sections of the contry focus on the power of the East coast elites.  Robinson writes,

"For most of our history, American economics, culture and politics have been dominated by a New England-based Yankee aristocracy that was rooted in Puritan communitarian values, educated at the Ivies and marinated in an ethic ofnoblesse oblige (the conviction that those who possess wealth and power are morally bound to use it for the betterment of society)."

Another strain of eliteism that has been quite vocal and popular in some corners of the Internet (think your conservative facebook friend) has a very different origin.  Robinson writes,

"
As described by Colin Woodard in American Nations: The Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, the elites of the Deep South are descended mainly from the owners of sugar, rum and cotton plantations from Barbados — the younger sons of the British nobility who’d farmed up the Caribbean islands, and then came ashore to the southern coasts seeking more land. Woodward described the culture they created in the crescent stretching from Charleston, SC around to New Orleans this way:"

It was a near-carbon copy of the West Indian slave state these Barbadians had left behind, a place notorious even then for its inhumanity….From the outset, Deep Southern culture was based on radical disparities in wealth and power, with a tiny elite commanding total obedience and enforcing it with state-sponsored terror. Its expansionist ambitions would put it on a collision course with its Yankee rivals, triggering military, social, and political conflicts that continue to plague the United States to this day.

Hearken back to your American history classes, remember reading about how plantation owners would use the selling of a family member as behavior management? (link) Similar  threats were made promising to sell off people to the West Indies or the deep south as those regions were reported to use more brutal methods and treat their slaves worse than the more genteel Virginian or northern slave owner. 

Robinson explains how the new conservative Republican party owes its success to the Southern elite value structure.  She eloquently explains how terms like freedom and liberty can now be used in the ironic ways that they are in the American media, she writes,

"When a Southern conservative talks about “losing his liberty,” the loss of this absolute domination over the people and property under his control — and, worse, the loss of status and the resulting risk of being held accountable for laws that he was once exempt from — is what he’s really talking about. In this view, freedom is a zero-sum game. Anything that gives more freedom and rights to lower-status people can’t help but put serious limits on the freedom of the upper classes to use those people as they please. It cannot be any other way. So they find Yankee-style rights expansions absolutely intolerable, to the point where they’re willing to fight and die to preserve their divine right to rule."

Lost in many history lessons is the knowledge of European slaves in America.  Irish, Scottish and working class English whites comprised the first American workforce.  Indentured servants continued to be imported to the country alongside Africans.  A good part of today's discourse  around the Tea Party suggests the manipulation of the poor and poorly informed is effective because they forget their best interest to do the bidding of elites.  This tactic is as old as America itself.  In the old south the plantation owner was the regional elite with close ties to the British monarchy, the University of Virginia still call themselves Cavillers.  Poor whites were manipulated to believe that their poverty and lack of education were  secondary to their status as white, even if they were suffering and not free.

Robinson constructs a strong thesis supported by relevant research and captivating writing.  In her thesis she echoes how much race is the Elephant in the room in the American parlour    The current context also serves as a loom for post-modern tapestry creation.  The President is a black man who is closely ties to the East Coast elitist model of leadership.  The House and large swaths of the media promote the Southern style.  Before November should we critique the past four years with Sara Robinson's article in the front of our minds?