Rachel Maddow Deftly Injects Anti-Racism Into the National Mainstream

Racism has been one of the greatest stains on the American experiment and remains an insidious and destructive force in today's society. The election of Barack Obama has done two things: 1) it has shown that a majority of the electorate is now ready and willing to trust a non-white as the nation's President and 2) energized a vocal minority of Americans who still seek a white-dominated American society.

In the mainstream, there's probably no more "prominent" spokesman for white supremacy than Pat Buchanan. I put prominent in quotes because the man is self-appointed, having never won election to anything.

In a recent appearance on the Rachel Maddow show, where he is a regular contributor, Buchanan once again spouted his white supremacy, non-white inferiority line of "reasoning" during a discussion of Sonya Sotomayor, and as usual, played fast and loose with the facts. While Maddow let him get away with it during the original segment, she took him to task in a follow-up segment, and in the process, gave the most eloquent and forceful endorsement of anti-racism I've ever heard on national TV.

This is a big subject, but let me summarize, because this is important to me:

• White supremacy means a world dominated by people who pass as white, and seeing the world through the lens of white peoples' experiences and standards


• There's a world of non-white people out there, and they have been systematically discriminated against by white people (don't believe me -- read some of these links)


• People like Pat Buchanan are completely bought into defending white supremacy and white privilege


• There is very little in the mainstream media as yet about combating racism and white supremacy, but I'm happy to say that in my personal/religious life, I'm deep at work on it.

I can't do Maddow's takedown justice by quoting her. You just have to watch it for yourself.

BTW, the relevance to PR: This country will be majority non-white in my children's lifetime. If your comms aren't changing to reflect this reality, you're falling behind.