Today, on the little slice of the Twilight zone that is the 2012 election, there is a story on the interwebz saying that Paul Ryan dated a black woman in college, and how this earth-shattering revelation would effect the election. It's trending #1 on Yahoo, is the first Auto-complete for "Paul Ry-" on Google, and Twitter is abuzz.
Except that it's not earth-shattering. It doesn't matter. Ryan's policies still hurt poor African-Americans the most, and also poor white people and any poor people. Ryan still supports the same anti-woman policies as Todd Akin. Ryan still wants to kill Medicare. Nothing has changed. This is politics, not tabloid celebrity news. Policies matter, gossip about a candidate's past does not.
So why am I wasting pixels on this? because I don't want to see any Kossacks or liberal bloggers take the bait. I don't want to see anyone use this as an "Aha!" moment and say something insensitive, or speculate about how Paul Ryan's past relationship relates to the way he interacts with a Tea party that has racist overtones. Just don't go there. Stick to the real message.
A little more about why I care about this so much below the orange squiggly.
"That's not your girlfriend, is it?
I usually despise the "DO NOT DO THIS", "DO NOT WRITE THIS" genre of diary. But this story and the reactions to it strike a chord with me because I dated a black girl in high school in the late 90's, and got a lot of shit for it. I know, interracial relationships shouldn't be a big deal now, and my story is in no way unique or uncommon. But there is still a lot of hostility towards interracial couples. I received a lot of threats, and people started to steal things out of my locker. I got called a "N-----r-lover" a lot. Her and I broke up after awhile. But later, my mom saw a picture of me with a different girl I was friends with who happened to be black, and it really hurt when my mom said "That's not your girlfriend, is it?" I knew my parents had some old-style views on race from growing up in de-facto segregated Cleveland, with whites on the West Side and blacks on the East Side. But they raised us in the country to get us away from that, and consciously did not pass on their views on race to us, instead letting my sister and I decide for ourselves and evolve with the times, and I thank them for that. My mom's comment about the black girl in the picture was probably the first and only racist thing I've ever heard her actually say. It did hurt.
"This is the meaning of White Power"
The issue of interracial couples brings racist feelings to the forefront in some people, and brings out out particularly ugly behavior in racists. There was couple next door to us a couple years ago, a black man and a white woman, I'll call him "D" and her "S". We talked to them fairly often, and S would come over and hang out with my wife sometimes. But D seemed a little suspicious of us and other people in our building, and would have excuses to refuse our invitations. I didn't hold it against him, thinking that some folks just like to keep to themselves.
They had a wonderful little 2 or 3 year old boy, and I don't think I've seen a happier, more energetic little kid than him. I'd always see him running around the 4th floor hallway, smiling and giggling. Whenever I saw him I always thought this child needs a big grassy yard to run in, instead of the dusty halls of our old building.
One day I came home and found a disturbing flyer taped up at the mailboxes that someone printed on a computer. It had a big pixellated Swastika on it and said something like:
"THIS IS THE MEANING OF WHITE POWER!!"
I took it down immediately, and it was obvious who this message was directed towards. I showed it to my my wife when she got home. Our neighbors had enough problems at that time, so we decided we wouldn't tell them about tell them about the racist flyer at the mailboxes. We thought it would be an isolated incident. But, Sure enough, next week another one showed up same as the last one. But this time it was taped to the wall on the fourth floor near our apartments where that little child would run around sometimes.
We kept an eye out for other threatening behavior, and a few days later I came home and found the same sign "White Power" sign taped right to their front door. I took it down, and we decided we had to tell the neighbors what was happening for their own safety. When S came home that day, we showed her the sign. I thought she would be surprised and upset, but she just let out a depressed, defeated sigh. "I already know about this," she said, and she told us she had taken down a sign herself at the mailboxes. She said that things like this happen to her and her husband all the time, but what scared her was that the sign was right on her door. "I'm used to this", she said "but it's not fair to my son." At the same time, that innocent little child was climbing all over our couch, talking to our guinea pigs, and watching our turtles and fish. Laughing and giggling as usual, he was oblivious to the events unfolding in the cruel, unfair world around him.
That was the last time we saw our neighbors, they abruptly moved three days later. I hope that kid got his nice grassy field to run in. I tried to find out the identity of the racist son of a bitch that did this, that harassed this family until he drove them away. The perpetrator of this crime was someone we knew, someone who lived in our building. But we never figured out his identity. For all I know, he could still live in this building. Racism, both silent and overt, is an ugly demon that is still lurking all around us, even in 2012. Racism towards mixed families is particularly loathsome.
"Don't even go there."
So all the speculation about Paul Ryan's ex-girlfriend from college brings back some emotion for me. Seeing people judge Paul Ryan in any way because of his past relationship with a black girl reminds me of being judged for my interracial relationship in high school. I still hear my mom saying "That's not your girlfriend, is it?" It makes me see that "white power" flyer in my head like it's right there in front of me, and see the defeated look on my neighbor's face as she was driven out of yet another neighborhood.
Even if you mean well, don't go there. Don't open that can of worms; don't dig that hole. Write about how Paul Ryan's draconian budget would kick black families in the wallet. Write about real incidents of Tea Party racism. But don't use Paul Ryan's past relationship with a black woman as a springboard to speculate about his views on black people, or the poor, or women's issues, or anything. It's not needed, because he has made his far-right views on these issues crystal clear. Our current plan of attacking those views is working.
Don't bring his ex-girlfriend's race into this. It only makes us look stupid, and makes things harder for those in interracial relationships who already have to deal with a particularly ugly form of racism. Tea Partiers on Twitter are already Tweeting about what "race-obsessed" liberals will say about this, just waiting for an unsuspecting liberal blogger to take the bait. Don't be the one that does. Lazy Mainstream Media of course, has already posted a few articles while I wrote this. I've seen no diaries on Dkos so far, so I'm glad that Kossacks have enough insight to see this story for what it is: not a story at all.