It's been a while since I've put up a new blog post, but I simply could not let the "genius" that is Jen Psaki pass by this time. Yes, I know it's hard to believe "circle back" girl said something dumb, but she did.
In a daily press briefing, she actually said that the administration was trying to reach "unvaccinated white conservatives" by advertising on "The Deadliest Catch," CMT (country music television), and NASCAR races. Now hol' on just a garsh-darn, chicken-friend country minute here. Let me unhook my bib overalls, take the piece of straw out of my mouth, "set down" my PBR, smooth out my flannel shirt, lace up my cowboy boots real...skip that one, walk over to my John Deere green tractor where the new-fangled phone contraption works better, tell my huntin' dogs to stay on the porch, grab my double-barrel shotgun just in case, and go to Faceyspace or Tweeter to respond to this here lady right quick. God love her.
Is Ms. Psaki really this completely ignorant? That's a rhetorical question. Of course she is. She, and the administration she represents, believe ALL white conservatives are some cornbread country mother f***ers who wouldn't know refinement if it saddled its prissy little ass up to our dinin' table.
Here's the thing. Y'know what makes someone a cornbread country mother f***er? God. And family. And country. In that order. In other words, my kind of people. The people whose values most closely resemble those of our Founders, and the men and women who have fought to ensure since then that that Star Spangled Banner does yet wave. Call me a redneck. I wear it like a badge of honor. I'm perfectly fine with you admitting that my values are better than yours. I'm perfectly fine with you admitting that you don't know what actually matters. And I'm perfectly fine having both the Stars and Stripes and the rebel flag on my car right now. (I'd explain to you what state's rights are, or why I want to be immediately recognizable as NOT being a Black Lives Matter terrorist, but you wouldn't understand.)
So the way you reach white people is to advertise during NASCAR races, on CMT, and on Deadliest Catch. That's cool. Do you reach black people by advertising on BET and reruns of "The Jeffersons?" Do you reach Hispanic people by advertising on Telemundo and Sesame Street? Gotta learn numbers and letters in English somehow, might as well advertise the vaccine too.
I cringed typing those comparisons. I'm sure you did reading them. For that, I sincerely apologize. But I will not apologize for making the fair and accurate point that this White House is a stereotyping, clueless disaster. This country is full of white people who have never watched an entire NASCAR race. (I haven't in probably 10 years.) I've never watched CMT or Deadliest Catch. I almost feel like my whiteness has been called into question. I mean, surely the POTUS and his ugly porcelain doll know what it means to be white better than I, right? Right??
Wrong. Joe Biden only knows how to be the version of white that was taught to him by his friend, mentor, and Ku Klux Klan grand cyclops, Robert Byrd. Not surprisingly, that brand is marked by being a condescending, stereotyping, hateful, useless prick. At least in Byrd's case that got him a bunch of stuff named after him in his home state of West Virginia. And do NOT get me started on West Virginia stereotypes. Though I reside in Maryland again, I will fight you. I exceeded the five-year residency requirement to be able to legally call the state "West By God." I have all my teeth, as do all my friends there, and ANY of us will learn you a thing or two should you be foolish enough to discuss politics or our Founding documents with us.
It's possible that Biden will make like his klansman-friend Byrd and get a bunch of stuff named after him. Of course, he'll first have to decide whether that will be in Scranton, PA (where he grew up during the campaign) or in Delaware (where he grew up once the campaign was over.) Politics is full of frauds, but Biden is one of the biggest. He had the audacity to say that "If you don't know if you're voting for me or for Trump, then you ain't black." As if black people are somehow compelled by the color of their skin to vote a certain way. We on the right believe that people of all shades are our equals and should use their brains when choosing a candidate. We don't view living around black people as akin to "growing up in a racial jungle," as Joe said. We don't make up stories about letting little black kids play with our leg hairs to seem more "woke." And if we make up a story about a big black dude we had to confront, we sure as HELL ain't gonna name him, "Corn Pop."
Biden is a racist. Biden has always been a racist. He believes stereotyping is a good thing -- as evidenced by his press secretary's idiocy, and his targeted advertising that misses the target. (That's the other thing we chicken-fried country folk are good at. Shootin'. If you want to learn to hit targets, Joe. Come on out. We'll help. We're kindly like that.)
But for all the joking I've done about Ms. Psaki's statements, they bother me. It's not often I am genuinely bothered by anything anyone in politics says, but that struck a nerve. First of all, the insinuation is that all "country folk" are stupid. Quite the contrary. Take a trip into a deeply rural area some time. You will find some of the most practically-intelligent people you will ever meet. You'll find bonafide book-smart people too. And people who are both. Those people who can teach you how to own a truck and a house with no debt, AND that can make you wish you never had the audacity to argue with them about the Constitution.
I just don't understand. Maybe it's my immense white privilege getting in the way, but why is it OK to stereotype white conservatives? How does no one realize how idiotic and hurtful doing so actually is? How would they feel if I decided that I wanted to reach out to leftists for an honest dialogue and did so by placing my contact information in copies of Karl Marx' "The Communist Manifesto?" Oh, we have a problem now? Shocker.
Sadly, I think that the left has had a problem with stereotyping and viewing inhomogeneous groups as one great mass for a long time. "The black vote." "The Hispanic vote." "The women's vote." "The college-educated vote." You've heard them all. Show me two black people and I will find 10 differences in under a minute. The same is true of Hispanics, women, and every other voting "block."
White conservatives are no different. How much time do you think William F. Buckley spent watching NASCAR? How much time do you think Jeff Foxworthy spends writing theoretical papers about politics?
This is stupid. MOST groups are about as homogeneous as snowflakes. (Not them, I mean real snowflakes.) I even have a very conservative, very gay friend. You're not going to reach him by running an ad during a NASCAR race. He's probably watching HGTV.
Damnit. Did I just stereotype?
- Jason Fornwalt, editor, Treehouse of Liberty Times
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