A blogger's explanation of racism

Rush shared this today, but for some reason he didn't remember the name of the blog. (Which I found surprising. He's been doing his radio show for 20 years, and he doesn't automatically write down these URLS to share them later??? Well - he found it in time for the next segment, and of course it was linked at the bottom of the transcription page. http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/15616.html)

Anyway, here's what he said.

This guy had a theory that one of the reasons for racism all the way back from the early days of this country up until the mid-sixties was a status thing. He said if you look most of the racists in this country were poor rural, white, and they didn't want to be considered at the lowest rung of the status ladder and always making sure there was somebody beneath them on the status ladder was important to them. Now, first I heard of this analysis when I read it, "Well, this may be worth thinking about."

When you look at it with the Sharron Angle business or the Sarah Palin business and now Christine O'Donnell and you look at the Republicans who are opposing these new conservative candidates and doing so with passion, you say, "Okay, they would prefer to have somebody like Mike Castle elected, who is not even as good as McCain. What good is that going to do the conservative movement?" These are supposedly conservative people who are out trashing conservative candidates in favor of the professional more so-called moderate Republicans, like Castle and like Chris Shays, and so forth. People, what does that get us?

This blogger's theory is that, well, some of these people who are ripping into Angle and ripping into Christine O'Donnell are really insecure about their own status in the ruling class and they want to remain in it, and they see what the power brokers of the ruling class are doing opposing the Palins, the O'Donnells, the George Demos's, all these Tea Party people, and they're taking their lead from that. They don't want to lose their status in the ruling class.

The reason why it's interesting to me is because on the surface it is hard to understand. Okay, here are conservative candidates. We have to acknowledge every candidate is going to have some baggage, personal and otherwise. But if you have a moderate RINO Republican versus a conservative Republican, and both have baggage, I mean it's unreal to think that the RINO Republicans are clean and pure as the wind-driven snow. Why all of a sudden do we now want the RINOs, after all these years and years and years of somewhat unity on the conservative side saying RINOs are not good for the party, not good for the country? So this guy's theory on status intrigued me. I'm still examining it, still looking into it. I'll find the blog. I'll read the exact words to you

The first para is an interesting take on racism, but I don't know if its the whole picture. Let's not forget that racism has existed throughout history, with every race. Different Native American tribes, for example, did not live in peace and harmony before the white man came. Apaches were hated by various other tribes, and vice versa, they were always warring amongst themselves. The Aztecs had a vast empire in Middle America, based on slave labor, and one reason the 50 or 60 conquistadors were able to defeat them was because they recruited other tribes of Indians who hated the Aztecs, to help them destroy them. (Little did they know what the result of that would be.)

In Africa, the various tribes there hated and hate each other to this day. In the middle east, you've got Muslims hating Jews and Jews hating Muslims and the Christians caught in the middle.

There's probably no place on earth, and no race on earth, that is free of racism.