A Summer of Angst

Image from Getty of the South Carolina Nine

This on again and off again blogger has been quite frustrated the past few months. Life’s special quirk of getting in the way has particularly been annoying to this author’s inability to write.  Working continuously and wanting more than just getting by on bare subsistence pay for the education invested had myself stressed beyond words. Yet, this blogger remains hopeful. It may not be rational, but, the breaking point of uncertainty has long been past, and, the trajectory of future tomorrows seems more certain than before. Nonetheless, with that stated, the first world problems of American politics is the one area that seemingly gets this blogger blood boiling on a daily basis.

The blood boiling began four days before the start of summer with the shooting of The Nine in South Carolina church and the subsequent fall out from various mediums:  main stream media, conservative media, and social media all frantic to explain, explain away, or exploit the tragedy. The police soon had the suspect in custody and soon after – all the sins of the ‘perp’ – Dylann Roof were revealed. Roof’s Facebook page showed his hate for black Americans along with numerous appropriated symbols, such as the Confederate battle flag of northern Virginia, which has been used sometimes as a symbol of white supremacy, defiance, ‘heritage,’ and authorized institutional racism (see the defiance in the southern states as civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s).

Image from onesmarineview.com

Social media exploded over The Nine’s death, South Carolina’s political figures, from the governor to senate to house representatives, were wrecked with emotion because of one of their own had been killed. The symbol of the northern Virginia Confederate flag became anew as the killer, Dylann Roof, appropriated it as point of unification to start a “race war.” Water cooler workplace debates, politically-correct sensitive corporations, social media outrage, 24-hour media news cycles, political pundits, and politicians alike found common grounds in varying forms in decrying the Confederate flag (as well as the murder suspect). The South Carolina political figures found the will to turn the symbol, which ‘flew proudly’ over the state capitol for decades in defiance, as a momentary acknowledgement and acquiescence of the history of black-white relations—and the need for healing—to remove the flag from flying over the state capitol soon afterwards. Other southern states ‘considered,’ that have the representation of the Confederate flag within the own state flags, the option of removing the symbol, but have failed to act.

Debate of the Confederate flag symbolic messaging muddied the motives, actions, and reasoning of the murder suspect, Dylann Roof, and for others became rationalization via social media phenomena of political posturing and polarization. Right-wing conservatives and zealot anti-establishment radicals of the political correctness posted on the Twitter sphere and Facebook to condemn the reactionary ‘left wing liberals’ of the over simplification of the Confederate flag symbolism – oppression and hate of black Americans. Many on the right felt (or feel) that their ‘heritage’ was (and is) under attack. Their great-great-grandfather was fighting for ‘states' right’ and was trying to ‘maintain’ their way of life. Some of the advocacy on the right rationalized that since their ancestors were not plantation owners but mere pawns of the elite that they are not as accountable or responsible for the atrocities committed against the slaves of the time.

Image from Snopes.com

Affectations that cast aspersions broadly resulted in short circuited conversations. The anger represented itself in this summer’s political discussions comminuted reality and empathy for the ‘other.’ The lack of empathy culminated into two steps backward for race-relations in America with anger and denial; and with, recent events, such as the shootings of police officers, illegal immigration, and failed understanding of how institutional racism impacts socioeconomic development of minorities, especially black Americans, has imported political extremes fervent mistrusts. 

Judicial inequities and income inequalities, for instance, between white and black Americans has generated much debate and anxiety from both within and without.

Image from New York Daily News of Officer Ray Tensing

The emotional burdening has wrought movements, such as Black Lives Matters and the now deflated decommissioning of the Confederate flag from southern state capitols. In addition, the angst, the bitterness, and anger that has been percolated over the summer transmuted into the political silliness of presidential campaigning in which real estate mogul Donald Trump as a viable candidate for president.

All of this aforementioned trials and tribulations of the current political atmosphere that churned throughout the summer has only begun and fortunately for this blogger my ability to write has returned….