Liberal Whites: You're No Better Than Trump Supporters

Posting images and articles alone to demonstrate your intellectual superiority over racist, conservative whites doesn't make you a better person. Only anti-racist activism does.
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This morning I logged into Facebook to find a viral "Make Your Own Trump At Home" video from the Huffington Post. If you can stomach the 43-second video, you'll see a man smothered in Cheeto dust, cheese and self-tanner before entering a board room. Its pretty gross. It is also pretty ineffective at educating voters about racism and the ideological flaws of Trump's platform.

My Facebook feed has been all about Trump lately. But most of these anti-Trump posts are by my liberal friends. Many of these posts shame Trump's base for being uneducated. These posts are doing much to end racism. Posting images and articles alone to demonstrate your intellectual superiority over racist, conservative whites doesn't make you a better person. Only anti-racist activism does.

I get it, it's funny to expose the ideological flaws of Trumps arguments. But videos exposing the ignorance of Trump's supporters, who are largely poor and uneducated, does not actually do anything except display your sense of moral superiority to fellow liberals.

Too many of viral anti-Trump content shames the poor and uneducated. After all, Trump's base is working class whites who didn't go to college. But Trump supporters are driven by the same inequitable economic conditions as Bernie supporters. Trump's base is as angry as they are misguided.

Yes, I agree that Sanders's proposals and ideas are morally superior to those of Trump's and his supporters. But white liberals and white conservatives both benefit equally from white privilege.

Most often I see my liberal friends post anti-Trump content to an audience of their fellow anti-Trump liberals. Comedic anti-Trump content doesn't harm Trump's campaign (it might even support it). Merely understanding and acknowledging the ways racism permeates every aspect of society is not enough. If you care about ending racism, you must actively dismantle racism through direct action.

This isn't to say that those who are targeted by Trump's racist rants and proposals should not find anti-Trump articles and videos therapeutic. I'm also not calling for an end to posting anti-Trump content on social media: I agree that social media can bring change. But posting YouTube comments and Buzzfeed videos doesn't make you exceptionally better than Trump Supporters, especially when your audience are like-minded progressives.

Just like white conservatives, white liberals benefit from racism. If you aren't actively dismantling the system, you are complacent. Complacency supports the oppressor.

Ask yourself, are you posting to demonstrate moral superiority, or to educate fellow white liberals? Are you interrogating the ways racism and racial ideology permeate your world views? Get out there and vote, campaign and discuss. Show up.

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