Race, Ethnicity and the Internet

When Lapwing posted and blogged, men berated the author and demanded to know Lapwing's marital status and whether Lapwing had children. Now that Cecilieaux has taken Lapwing's place, the same men throw ethnic sneers.

Hard an act as it may be to follow one's Galatea, especially when one's blushing maiden turned her eyes away, she has made clear an ugly truth about U.S. society: there are in it too many puny who derive their self-esteem from seizing on traditional social prejudices against for the most part immutable characteristics of others.

When they were upstaged by Lapwing she was an uppity woman to put down; now Cecilieaux is the Spic too big for his breeches. They don't really know who the author of these posts and blogs are. They act on their base impulses and spew their venom.

This is what was once meant by the term "White trash." There's just too much of it, emboldened by the nods and winks of the those with power.

Racism, misogynism and homophobia are back. The puny white men who feel inadequate unless they use the stick of prejudice to keep another down are running amok.

The Christians are not calling them on it. The Republican Party, the organization of Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott, which thrived on Southern resentment at the enactment and enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is winking and nodding its approval so fiercely it seems to have developed a tic.

But Race in America is solved, isn't? That's the motto of every non-Hispanic white. "Me, racist? ...America is diverse now." But the white Protestant men of northwest European background are still the CEOs, the gated-community dwellers and the white, White House.

More ... they're working hard to turn back the clock.

They're defunding child care and instead want to spend money on getting fathers back into the workforce, so the little women can go back to the kitchen. (Never mind that no family can afford to live on one income any more.) They destroyed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Civil Rights Commission 20 years ago and they've gone after "affirmative action" with gusto.

Oh, they're very equal opportunity about one thing: sending African-Americans, Hispanics and women to die in Iraq so that one day ... (wait for it) ... Dick Cheney can get a monster thank-you check from Halliburton.