Word: racisms
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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People take a sick pleasure in finding out that some incidents of alleged racism really are nothing of the sort. People derive collective satisfaction when they learn that water buffalo are from Asia, not Africa. It makes them feel better...
...defender of authority in all its manifestations -- legal, familial, religious and military. "Traditional values" made their first tentative debut in the '68 Republican campaign, when Spiro Agnew promised to cure social unrest with a mass spanking. It was in '68 that a "New Right" -- toughened with the grass- roots racism of George Wallace, fortified intellectually by the neoconservatives -- emerged to uphold the traditional icons of God, family and flag...
Thus both sides of the "culture wars" of the '80s and '90s took form in the pivotal year of '68. The key issues are different now -- abortion and gay rights, for example, as opposed to Vietnam and racism -- but the underlying themes still echo the clashes of '68: Diversity vs. conformity, tradition vs. iconoclasm, self-expression vs. deference to norms. "Question authority," in other words, vs. "Father knows best...
...broad range of racially loaded topics that have delighted and irritated people on both sides of the color line. West flays liberals and conservatives for trying to force blacks "to do all the 'cultural' and 'moral' work necessary for healthy race relations" while ignoring the psychic pain that racism has inflicted on the urban poor. He accuses the black middle class that has sprung up since the civil rights movement of the '60s of being "decadent" and "deficient." One consequence of its grasping materialism, he charges, is that "there has not been a time in the history of black people...
Like many black activists and socialists, West rails against white racism, powerful corporations and rampant consumerism. But because of his passion for moral consistency, he also insists the fight against sexism and homophobia must be on an equal footing with the battle against racial oppression. "A lot of black brothers and sisters think talking about homophobia and sexism will dilute the attack on racism," says West. "But black culture is unimaginable without James Baldwin, the poet Audre Lorde or ((civil rights activist)) Bayard Rustin, and I won't even begin to talk about black gay brothers and sisters...