Being woke is a constant struggle in these ever-changing times.
Actress and activist Jane Fonda, (starring in a new film this weekend about rich sad white women called Book Club), wrote a blog piece about how racism is perpetuated in America. In her hard-hitting celebrity analysis, she wrote that Trump, rooted in the “bedrock of White Supremacy,” has a “fear of multiracial unity.”
But it’s not just Trump that plays into this awful worldview, where multiply, divide, and conquer apparently reigns supreme. It’s the people on the right, and even what Fonda calls the “neo-liberals.” The right, apparently, is the “common enemy.” The irony of a wealthy Hollywood elitist criticizing what she calls the “ruling class, the corporate elite,” apparently escapes her.
She expanded, “What we must admit is that the far right, the Koch brothers, the Trumpists, the Steve Bannons and, yes, even some neo-liberal- Wall-Street-apologists who make sure Blacks and Browns are marginalized are the same ones who also hurt the poor and White working class by weakening labor unions, not coming up with new job development and infrastructure improvements in areas where mines and factories have closed.”
Among other things, Fonda wept over her inability to understand race, saying, “because I’m White, the lens through which I had been looking at race was too shallow.” She should try looking at it through the site on an NVA anti-aircraft gun. That might clear things up.
And racism is really, so bad these days. “Though it’s more subtle now, Blacks continue to be prevented from enjoying the same rights and privileges Whites do. It is our colorblindness and, dare I say our willful laziness that keep us from seeing the segregated, horrifically unequal schools, the communities redlined by banks to keep Blacks out, the deliberately created food deserts and segregated ghettos where militarized police round up Black and Brown people for drug crimes that Whites are forgiven for.” Has Fonda, who has a net worth of $200 million, been to these ghettos and schools? Has she seen poverty lately? Or is all this coming from her extensive reading of books by people like Ta-Nehisi Coates? (It’s still illegal for governments to force segregation of schools.)
While Fonda is so eager to achieve political unity, the fact that she demonizes the right in her piece shows that she is only looking for a certain kind of unity. The kind where only extremely progressive views are held.
