Southern Democrats are being dragged for their racist behavior in the past.
On Wednesday, Maryland elected officials came out in numbers to call for the resignation of Hartford County (MD) Democrat Mary Ann Lisanti, who used the n-word to describe a Prince George’s legislative district that just so happens to be one of the most affluent black communities in the country.
The Maryland state black legislative caucus, Gov. Larry Hogan and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks were among the multitude who wants Lisanti to step down.
“We know she is one of our colleagues, we know she is a Democrat, but party has nothing to do with the hatred and bigotry that comes out of someone’s mouth,” said Del. Darryl Barnes, a Democrat who leads the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland.
Right now, despite all of the blowback that exploded from the event horizon of this calamitous affair early on, it is already dissipating from a mainstream coverage standpoint.
The N*gger District, as she so stupidly named one of the wealthiest and most highly educated black jurisdictions in the United States. Her inability to police her own tongue, even though she was in private, is a testament to the level of racial privilege and ignorance she has likely enjoyed her entire life.
Lisanti, a white Democrat from Maryland, likely believes she doesn’t have a racist bone in her body, but the legacy of race in America is so prevalent that one can easily be considered racist by proxy.
Especially so when one is a son or daughter of a former Confederate State. Institutional racism isn’t simply a matter of government-sanctioned policies or the manner in which pillars of American society can readily be mobilized to stamp out all serious threats to the racist status quo, such as the manner in which non-violent activists against oppression have been equated with radical terrorist organizations in the United States.
It is these institutions that protect the interests of special interest groups over the will of the people. But institutions are nothing without people. People who vote on, sign and carry out racist edicts and doctrines. People like Delegate Lisanti, a Democrat.
Racism is not only taught like fairy tales in the Deep South, but it is practiced in the court rooms, during voter suppression, and in the media whenever the mainstream immediately blames dead black folk for being killed by the police.
It’s people who dressed up in blackface or as a Nazi “just for fun” and allowed themselves to be photographed. People like Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring, both of whom are now embroiled in scandal. Virginia, the same state where the Gubernatorial First Lady thought it was a good idea to give children cotton balls and tell them to “think about how tough slavery was” for Black History Month.
Some would say these racist photos and mindsets are simply moments of poor judgment. However, I’d argue it’s more a result of poor upbringing. An upbringing steeped in fantasies of white superiority. An upbringing that celebrates keeping poor whites uneducated and destitute, only to have them reelect incompetent incumbents on race and demagogic rhetoric.
While the country, once again, feigns shock and awe over the revelation that 50 plus-year-old southern white male or female might have done or said something racist in the near or distant past, others will already have braced ourselves for the increasing certainty that white supremacy isn’t the child or one party, but of both.
Thus, it will continue being inadvertently carried along every Election Day when black and brown folks vote along the lines of party allegiance and tradition when voting for “blue” white supremacists.
