Rise of the American White Reich, again

I was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, into a white, affluent family. We lived in the Crestline side of Mountain Brook, a white, affluent suburb "over the mountain" from Birmingham. The only blacks in Mountain Brook were live-in servants, day workers, sanitation workers, and caddies, kitchen staff and waiters in the Birmingham and Mounty Brook Country Clubs. They came over the mountain every morning on city transit buses, worked, and went back over the mountain on city transit buses in the evening. 

Mt. Brook eventually gave itself a nick-name: The Tiny Kingdom.

W/hen I was a boy, white people called black people Negroes, nigras and niggas, depending on cultural upbringing and mood of the whites. I often said nigga, which was a shame, because my black nanny loved me as her own child. Looking back in time, I think I can say, if she was not in my life when I was a boy, I would have been fucked. She is the second person memorialized in A FEW REMARKABLE ALABAMA PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN (2004): afewremarkablealabamapeople.blogspot.com.

When the sit-ins and Birmingham Police brutality against black people happened in Birmingham, I was off at a prep high school and not particularly interested or concerned. 

When the freedom marches happened, I was off at college, drinking beer and dating girls, and was not concerned or involved. 

When Governor George Wallace stood barring black enrollees from attending class at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and President John Fitzgerald Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard to escort black enrollees to their classes, I was off at college and was not concerned.

When the freedom marches came to Alabama, I was off at college and was not concerned.

I belonged to the Kappa Alpha Order (fraternity), whose spiritual founder was Robert Edward Lee of Old Virginia. The top Confederate general. The actual founders of KA were young white men.

KA had a brass cannon and a Confederate flag, and we often shot off that cannon and waved that flag and seceded from the Union. We had northern members who shot off the cannon and waved the flag. I was convinced two of our brothers from Mississippi were Klan, and that bugged the shit out of me.

Now, KA had a different aspect. Our Order's crest contains the words, Dieu et les Dames. God and the women. The secret initiation rites, which we called "the mystic goodies", were based on the Holy Grail tradition. The mystic goodies had nothing to do with the Confederate Flag and the brass cannon. The mystic goodies had to do with a way of life, in which, for men, God and women are paramount.

Decades later, when I was living in Key West, I got involved in a Facebook discussion started by some of my KA brothers, whom I remembered well and fondly. The drift was the good old times at the fraternity house. The drift was kinda Confederate flag and cannon. I said, I thought the real drift of KA was its mystic goodies, which were based on the Holy Grail. A brother from Louisiana took offense, A brother from Georgia said I was right. The brother who took offense asked if I was not all the way into the flag and the cannon when I was a KA? I said, yes, but as the years passed, I grew out of that and into the mystic goodies.

I met my wife to be on a blind date to a KA party in 1963. She was my KA Rose. I dreamed about her last night, perhaps so I would think to tell this story today, before I get into what I saw on television last night, which I reported today on my Facebook page, as follows:

I watched parts of CNN's town hall meeting last night, while I did other things online, and I suppose I got about half of it. In what I saw, Donald Trump used it to preach to his adoring legions for free. I think it assured Trump will be the Republican nominee in 2024, unless something happens between now and then that takes him out of action, such as a medical event, or a criminal prosecution that results in conviction and prison time, but even then he could still run for the presidency from prison. 

What I wonder about last night, and perhaps CNN hoped, while Trump was preaching to his adoring legions, he also was freaking out a lot of people who will join ranks with the Democrats in 2024 and vote for the Democrat candidate, which is looking like Joe Biden, unless he has a medical event that knocks him out of action.

I'm an Independent. In 2016, for the first time ever, I voted for a major party candidate. Joe Biden. I voted for him very reluctantly. I came to wish I had not voted for him. I think America is fucked, regardless of who is in the White House. But when I see Joe Biden, I am not reminded of Germany in the late 1930s. 

If you actually look at photos of MAGA rallies, and the Charlottesville Confederate Monuments removal protest, and the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, you see oceans of white people. In the law is the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, which is Latin for, the thing speaks for itself. Res ipsa is evidentiary in a court of law and in God's Court.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com