WHAT AM I MISSING?

By Edwin Cooney

As I sit down to write this column every week, I’m usually energized by a message or a story I wish to convey to the reader for his or her knowledge or enlightenment.  This week, I’m uncomfortably flummoxed and I’m seeking your help.  

A few days ago, I got a response to last week’s column from a reader encouraging me not to be a globalist but to be a nationalist.  He went on to say that America is in deep trouble and the only way America can hope to recover is by electing Donald Trump our next president.  Well, I can accept that as a working hypothesis, but then he went on to urge me to read a recent book entitled “The Angry White Male” by Wayne Allyn Root.

My response to (I’ll call him) Mr. O’s suggestion to read such a book is that it is offensive.  I still feel that way!  However, I’m not entirely sure my response is healthy.  In my responding email to Mr. O, I suggested that whites, blacks, Hispanics (just to name three groups) all suffer from such scourges as unemployment, underemployment, and outrageous threats to their persons. Why should I read about the plight of “angry white males”?  I find such a suggestion to be extremely racist.  I suggested to him in my response that we ought to be concerned about everyone’s pain. In his response he agreed, but put off a defense of his suggestion for another time.

All of us look at the world from our own beings and circumstances.  We are “us ” and the rest of the world are “they.” However, most of us are taught as a part of our spiritual or religious orientation some version of the Golden Rule.  We obey that golden rule as long as we don’t endanger our social, economic or political advancement and well being.

For the first time since 1968 when former Alabama Governor George Corley Wallace ran for president on the American Independent Party ticket, white men apparently believe that at last they have a candidate of their “very own.”  (Note: in 1992, when (Henry) Ross Perot ran as the Independent Party candidate, he made it clear to the American voter “If you’re a racist, I don’t want you or your vote.”)  With all that the white American male has accomplished and been handsomely rewarded for achieving, it seems to me to be absurdly painful and shameful that he paints himself as a victim now that minorities are finally likewise accomplishing and being rewarded.  I’m sure it’s especially galling that an American of African descent has twice been elected President of the United States.  It’s my guess that historic event is the real rub!

Black militancy is unfortunately far more understandable than this new white militancy.  Of course, too often it is just as racist as what I’ll call “Trump militancy,” but at least it has an historical context!  All militancy, whatever its justification, is usually counterproductive and should be avoided.  Unfortunately, racial animosity in our history goes back to the 1830s and for reasons both understandable and regrettable has poisoned our national serenity.  Thus, it seems to me, that in 2016 we ought to be seeking the root of our dilemmas rather than the justification for our anger, as well as the root of the ills that affect all of us.

“Angry white males” labeled as a social or political category of citizens is racism pure and simple!  That, however,  doesn’t mean that an angry white voter is even close to being a racist.  After all, there’s a lot to be worried and thus angry about in the two-hundred and fortieth year of our American age!

If someone separates himself from you because of your ethnic or racial heritage , he does so because of who you are rather than anything you’ve done or believe.  No matter who you are, you are as pure as the most innocent baby there ever was and ought to be assumed as such unless you start judging others.  Then, of course, you deserve the animosity of everyone — angry white men included!

So, what am I missing?  Should I read the book?  I think not as I have no interest in becoming an “angry white male!”  I may be an angry parent, citizen, and I am a male, but I don’t have to be angry to be a a “true red, white, and blue” American citizen!  As for Mr. O.’s admonition that I should be a nationalist rather than a globalist, history shows that intelligent knowledge and planning in the international field ensures American peace and prosperity.  There’s little wisdom in pre World War II isolationism.

Race as a topic for study and redress is a legitimate one and even essential when it comes to pointing out unique differences or inherent injustices toward races of people throughout our past.  White Americans collectively remain far and above the most powerful, wealthy and freest people on God’s not-so-green earth!  We are all alike in that we are of some racial or ethnic origin.  We are all winners and losers in various aspects of life. Individually, as parents concerned for the future of their children and as citizens worried about the safety and prosperity of their country, white Americans have not only the right, but the duty to gripe!  However, their anger as a group is a little silly and it’s damned unpatriotic!

Want an example of a silly, angry white male?  Mr. Donald John Trump - that’s who!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY