A Certain Segment of White People Have Already Seceeded from the Union

On July 25, 2011, a Monday night, President Obama stood at a podium to talk about the stalemate in Washington concerning the debt ceiling. Immediately following him was Speaker of the House, John Boehner, standing at a podium talking about why he cannot possibly pass a bill that includes any sort of revenue increases (tax hikes). He would not give the president a blank check. At first, I could not believe what I was seeing. John Boehner's platform looked so much more presidential than the actual president's. There was a podium, an American flag in the background, and the corner of a very expensive-looking mahogany desk. If I were to simply glance at the screen, I would've thought that John Boehner were the President addressing the nation from his Oval Office.

When I woke on July 26, 2011, I got it: John Boehner is the unofficial President for a certain segment of white people. Yes, white people have already seceded from the country socially; therefore, they feel no need to cooperate politically. John Boehner is the last hope for a group of white people who are afraid and confused, and who feel that their world is topsy-turvy. With people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck who make a living by race-baiting, the fear is real. The fear is tangible. Americans generally live by a fixed-pie mentality: there is only so much wealth to go around, and we must hoard it for ourselves in the name of self-preservation. Beck and Limbaugh get onto the radio and scream, "The ________ folk are coming." You may fill in the blank with your choice of minority group: women, African Americans, Latinos and Hispanics, or homosexual. Whichever low-hanging ethnic fruit is fashionable, they use it to scare white people.

And for the most part, their strategy is as effective as it is old. I can give you a perfect example. After school desegregation, there were many op-eds in local papers which said that school integration would only lead to race-mixing. Throughout the South, after enforcement of school desegregation laws began, white people began to withdraw their children from public schools, and they established Christian Academies. White people also moved away from the city limits and city politics, and into the counties, scarcely even showing their faces in town to vote or purchase groceries. In short, they seceded from their Southern towns socially, and refused to participate politically. Sometimes, they did not support the towns economically, choosing instead to purchase their goods in small cities such as Natchez, McComb, Baton Rouge, or Vicksburg rather than buy from their local grocers where Black people also shopped.

What we're seeing from the Tea Party and their irrational ideological stances, is the secession of white people from American society. Tea Party members are the only people that stand between a world which makes sense, and what a certain segment of scared whites must certainly see as a viable "planet of the apes" (Is there any wonder that the movie is making a resurgence at this exact moment?). In less than a decade, this country will be a majority minority country: combined, there will be more minorities here than white people. By refusing to cooperate politically, and hoping to destroy the country economically, Tea Party members are making the last stand for a certain segment of isolated Americans: the scared white constituents who elected them to keep the fate of the free world out of the hands of a Black man. I have the sneaking suspicion that "big government," to the Tea Party is synonymous with "Black government." When John Boehner and other conservatives say they will not hand over a "blank check" to President Obama, they mean that they're not willing to hand over the government to a Black man, or any other person of color for that matter. One way or the other, they're letting their constituents know who's really in charge: the white man is still in control. Their strategy: crash the economy and put the country back into the hands of a white man. Their rationale: though we may all suffer if the economy defaults and President Obama loses the 2012 election, at least we'll be suffering in a world where white person is in charge, and therefore makes sense.