Sunday, September 11, 2022

Quote of the Day

The powerful rise of the Black "next" in contemporary Black protest as we reckon with systemic racism has been met by the reactionary forces of the white "again," notably President Trump, who has commandeered military forces to descend on American cities in a profane violation of civic virtue and the rights of citizens to assemble and argue on their feet for the social good.  This president has set a political precedent that not even our most acidly conservative leaders have dared to establish.  The trumping up of false allegations against protesters -- that they are troublemaking anarchists, that they hate America, that they are the reason racial justice continues to be thwarted -- is part of the ratcheting up of racial bigotry.  It is a cynical summons of the biting words of white nationalism from a deep cesspool of racial intolerance -- a gesture that, in concert with the president's other politically destructive moves, has the nation teetering on the edge of the neofascist abyss.  The white "again" has rarely possessed a voice that echoes disdain for racial justice as loudly as Trump's.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, Long Time Coming, p. 132-133

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