I just received a forwarded email memo from a friend. It's a memo that was sent to all teachers at Cranston High School East (RI):
"On September 8, 2009, President Obama will be sending out a live address to students across the nation. Per the Superintendent, no one should show this address live or taped to any students. The address will be taped by the school for showing at a possible later date. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter."
Can you imagine if a public high school would have attempted to prohibit a teacher from showing a speech by President George W. Bush, only a year ago? Imagine the heyday Fox News would have had!
The point of this post: this matters. The escalating right-wing hysteria we have been witnessing this summer-and the ways it is successfully framing the dominant media narrative-matters a great deal.
The intended audience of this post: progressives and radicals who think that their disillusionment/frustration/anger with the Obama Administration and/or the Democratic Party somehow excuses them from actively fighting the right-wing racist cultural backlash we are experiencing.
I am not asking you to defend the Obama Administration or its policies. I am asking you to defend part of what it symbolizes: progress on social-and particularly racial-equality. Yes, I know, the Administration symbolizes a great deal more than that. Maybe it symbolizes empire to you. Maybe it symbolizes corporate or banking interests. Great. You're preaching to the choir. But none of the realities of this Administration's policies negate the reality that our society's and our movements' gains on social and racial equality are under attack by an organized and resourced Right that is feeding and exploiting a growing cultural backlash. This backlash is rooted in a classic combination of economic anxiety and white supremacist attitudes (masked or, increasingly, open).
Harry Truman in a "bipartisan" moment with Lauren Bacall, a staunch liberal Democrat. This is about as "bipartisan as Harry got."
Last week was exhilarating for Democrats and, judging by the international media, for people all over the planet who have suffered for nearly a decade from the misguided and often criminal policies of George Bush and his terribly inept administration.
The swearing in of Barack Obama and the departure of the Connecticut Cowboy from our public affairs was something long anticipated, and, after our long dark winter, as welcome as the return of springtime and birdsong, at least in these quarters.
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Harry Truman in a "bipartisan" moment with Lauren Bacall, a staunch liberal Democrat. This is about as "bipartisan as Harry got."
