John McCain is dead. This 2010 immigration bill video h/t @rerutled is just one reminder why I & many people of colour do not mourn him. “Drug & human smuggling, home invasions, and murder” & “Complete the danged fence” paved the way for Trump. Remember.
“Do not speak ill of the dead” can’t apply to politicians whose work caused ill to so many people. McCain’s family & friends will mourn him how they see fit.The rest of us have every right to remember how he contributed to the racism at the heart of the GOP, from 👆🏽to Palin etc
And I’m grateful that @rerutled shared that 👆🏽awful video with me because its racism is clear. I’m fed up with the whitesplaining to people of colour about that other video of a woman asking McCain if it was true that Obama was an Arab. Stop whiteplaining.
There is no way you can whitesplain to people of colour what 👆🏽 McCain ad is saying. It is not extemporaneous. It is calculated and intentional. It predates Trump’s “bad hombres,” & “Mexicans are rapists and murderers” and is the 2010 version of “Build that Wall.”
Understand that when you insist “do not speak ill of the dead” about politicians, you’re effectively erasing their political record & refusing to connect shitstorm we’re in now to the people who contributed to it. All the “this is not my America” people: your amnesia is dangerous
Hagiographies serve power; always challenge power. Lionizing dead politicians is dangerously amnesiac; always remember. Because it is through challenging power & remembering unjust policies it employed that brought us to where we are,do we stand a chance of resisting & subverting
A lot of the back & forth about McCain is partly about the “nice racist” syndrome. What to do with a politician who face-to-face seems to have been on a friendly basis with many political opponents. Those of us who aren’t his friend & never worked with him have just his policies.
To those of us on the receiving end of racism & racist policies, how “nice” you are is irrelevant. Racism is awful. And asking us to be “respectful” & “polite” about dead politicians because they were “nice racists” is another reminder of who is served by “respectability.” Power
It is an ability unique to white people to see the “niceness” in a racist and his racist policies. It is a luxury that those of us who are not white cannot afford.
