Racism

We have been talking once again about racism in America. This time the catalyst was a tweet from Roseanne Barr suggesting that Valerie Jarrett, President Obama's former advisor and friend was the product of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Planet of the Apes. The reference to the Planet of the Apes suggests that Jarrett, who is African American, is an ape, which has been a common trope to suggest that people from Africa and of African descent are less than human. That is, they are not as far a long on the evolutionary track as Europeans and their descendants. It was used in previous centuries to justify slavery. After all, they weren't really fully human. We even enshrined this belief in the Constitution, counting people who were black as three fifths of a person.
Roseanne's tweet isn't harmless. It is one more expression of a view held by some that white people are by nature superior to others. It is a view enshrined in the principle of manifest destiny. We used it t…
Roseanne's tweet isn't harmless. It is one more expression of a view held by some that white people are by nature superior to others. It is a view enshrined in the principle of manifest destiny. We used it t…