well, at the same time, bubbles–his hands are tied, I think, in the mainstream political way on this. if he gets “too extreme” (i.e. naming American Border Patrol as a hate group, as bill clinton did), that is pathetically easy by a strong extreme right to twist into “see, we TOLD you he was gonna enact his hateful anti-white agenda!!!”–i think that politically he has to take the MLK stance here, where he becomes less forceful so that sympathetic white folks “hear” him instead of get swayed by the other side because “that was just one step too far up the ladder,” you know? It’s a tactic a LOT of poc take when navigating largely white spaces–I don’t think there’s any shame in it–except that in this particular case, it can and more than likely will lead to violence against marginalized groups.

but then at the same time–you have to wonder, if he takes a more forceful hardline position–how would that antagonize violence even further against communities of color, immigrant communities, queer communities, women, etc? for example–after 9-11, it was actually queer communities that were on the brunt end of the most violent attacks–more so than any other group except arabs! I’ve read a lot of scholars that argue really interesting things about how reactions to 9-11 were so heavily dependent on reinforcing a super hyper masculine maleness….so, i guess if we want to ask: how can we stop the resurgence of neo-Nazism–we’d have to ask: what are reactions to Obama being elected dependent on? I guess it makes sense in that light that there’s been such a huge upswing in anti-immigrant violence post election even though immigration has effectively been off the table for a whole year–Obama crossed really strict racial borders–to the point many white people say “they want their country back!!!” (I mean, that’s SUCH a loaded statement, it means and speaks to so many things…)…many white extremists are capitalizing on that feeling of “losing country” by speaking “stop invading hordes!” language…sigh, i don’t know what his response should be–and the sad thing is, he probably doesn’t know either–who does he ask for advice??? hugo chavez??? good lord.