The tape of LA Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling allegedly ranting to his girlfriend about not wanting her to embarrass him by socializing with Blacks…the comments uttered by Fox News and Tea Party “hero” Cliven Bundy questioning why Blacks ever wanted to end slavery…these are ignorant old men who are bigots and racists, but the news about them reminded me of a comment Michael Moore made in a discussion last year at the Montclair Film Festival (that’s Montclair, NJ, where I live).  To paraphrase, Moore (no relation, as far as I know) said that we just have to wait for the bigots to die.  NBA owner, Sterling, as rich as he must be, can’t dissuade the Grim Reaper from his appointed rounds—he’s old, and we’ll soon have one less bigot.  (I’ll admit that at the time I write this, proof still has to be supplied that the recorded voice is his, but he has a track record.)  Bundy’s made his money by stealing from U.S. taxpayers, which somehow is more folksy-heroic than stealing from basketball fans and players, but he too is old and will die, erasing another bigot.

Unfortunately, Michael is wrong.  Bigots and fanatics aren’t born; they’re made.  They’re products of their culture.  Technically, these are subcultures, I suppose, but “sub” implies that we have just one or few cultures in the U.S.  We don’t.  We have many.  Every immigrant—and we’re all descended from immigrants, except for Native Americans—imports some of the culture from his Fatherland, and that percolates through the decades.  The average person usually passes through many subcultures during his or her life, but not always.  While one might be a bigot or fanatic as a reflection of their parents’ culture (they’re not mutually exclusive, of course), that can be overcome.  As the nation becomes more diverse and subcultures more plentiful, a person often adapts, realizing that the prejudices and fears inculcated in him by his parents are invalid.  Or not.  Prejudice, even hate, can be so ingrained that the personality collapses without it.

The average person, independently of his inner thoughts, generally expresses tolerance.  Of course, those hidden thoughts can surface in stressful situations or as an expression of mob mentality.  I can’t believe every person in the crowd watching KKK members hang a Black or Jew in the Old South really wanted to do harm to the victim, but the emotional rants of other members of the crowd and the angry words of the self-made executioners are like an emotional elixir that seem to validate the smallest prejudice.  I’m convinced the average person isn’t a sociopath; he or she can be convinced by logical arguments to betray their subculture and stand up for good, not evil.

Now comes my prejudice: I’m not so sure the same can be said about a member of the rich elites.  A fortiori, these aren’t average people.  The silver-spoon metaphor often rings true: a person living a privileged life lives in a subculture that bears little relation to any the average person might experience.  In many cases, that elite subculture is so isolated that the person doesn’t even connect with things the average person experiences.  Remember Papa Bush’s amazement upon seeing supermarket scanners?  In dynasties—they’re industrial or political in the U.S.—you’re not likely to discover genetic consequences of inbreeding like in old European royal families.  You’ll find instead socio-economic-political consequences.  The Bush Dynasty might be continued by Dubya’s brother Jeb, who has lived the privileged life as much as his brother.  You might have a noblesse-oblige attitude like in the Kennedy dynasty or an egotistical one like in the Clinton dynasty, but the dynasty’s subculture, once formed, is as closed as any ancient tribe’s.

Even if that member of a rich elite made his money the old-fashioned way—in other words, he’s not part of a dynasty, and is a self-made greedy person, like Sterling or Bundy—he morphs himself so that his membership in an exclusive club is assured, or, he creates his own subculture.  He doesn’t have to worry about getting along because, if needs be, he can thumb his nose at the rest of humanity.  He only has to get along with a very small number of peers.  He can afford to come out of the closet and be a complete sociopath.  He rarely does.  It’s lonely being a complete sociopath.  Not everyone can be Howard Hughes, although today’s fortunes, even among corporate CEOs, makes Hughes look like a pauper.

I suppose in some sense Fox News and the Tea Party bet on the wrong horse (ass?) in choosing to back Bundy over Sterling.  The latter has used his riches to create jobs for all those Blacks on his team, after all—even the coach is Black.  It’s trickle-down economics at its best, right?  Using Bundy’s terminology, these players wouldn’t be better off as slaves.  But who would?  Racism and bigotry are alive in America, at all socio-economic levels.  Right-wing extremists wanting a folk hero usually don’t have to wait too long before another one comes along and displays his ignorance.  In Bundy’s case, he puts his boot in his mouth and it’s covered with manure—s*&t in, s*&t out, as they say.  Sterling doesn’t have the excuse of being an ignorant rancher.  His only excuse, maybe, is that he has a recently spurned mistress, which provides evidence for moral failure as well as bigotry.

But when these two ungentlemanly gentlemen swoop down to Hell to put Lucifer in his place, that won’t end bigotry and racism.  And that’s why Michael Moore is wrong.  It won’t help that the bigots and fanatics are dying off.  Bundy might not be a one-percenter empowered by his money to spout off, but the riches of the elites are increasing at the cost of everyone else.  As the income gap widens, the culture of the rich elites will become more disassociated with the rest of American culture.  Mr. Bundy just might be another Joe Sixpack, as far as I know, like the one Mitt Romney made famous.  Or was it McCain?  But Sterling clearly feels his money allows him to have a laissez-faire attitude about speaking his bigoted mind.  For the rich, this is inevitable, unless some external force stops them.  Can that force be cultural?  Perhaps.  Let me explain how.

Consider Mr. Sterling.  If the owner’s rants are truly his, what can be done?  The cultural force that can be applied is the boycott.  A boycott by fans and players is called for.  The former is simple.  Traditionally the Clippers have played second fiddle in the LA pro basketball market.  Magic Johnson was an LA Laker and that magic era when playoffs often were touted as Magic v. Bird have become legendary, although I often read too much Black v. White in that competition (not from Magic and Larry but from the fans).  There’s more parity these days (MLB needs to follow the NBA and NFL’s example), but a boycott of the Clippers by basketball fans would hurt Mr. Sterling.  A boycott or strike by Clippers players, right in the middle of playoffs, would hurt even more.  Of course, it might hurt the players too, which is unfair—they should vie for the championship without interference from their idiot owner.

Now, consider Mr. Bundy.  Here the federal government dropped the ball.  He should be in federal prison.  He’s a tax cheat.  He’s cheated American taxpayers.  We can’t throw him in jail for just bigotry and racism, of course.  Although he probably wouldn’t have any problem committing a more serious crime, especially if his victim were Black, in the big picture of American bigotry, he’s small potatoes and only guilty of being one-hundred percent insensitive.  Like Al Capone, the Feds should get him on tax evasion, though.  Hurting bigots in the pocket book is the only thing that works with bigots who are one-percenters, or wannabe one-percenters.  Bundy probably isn’t as rich as Mr. Sterling, but he thinks he’s rich enough to spew out bigotry and get away with it.

By the time this post appears, I suppose the media will have gone on to some other stories (Mr. Bundy’s has already been overshadowed by Mr. Sterling’s), and the NBA commissioner (who, by the way, is white), will have pooh-poohed the owner’s words and ignored the outrage in favor of burying the issue in legalities (he’s already doing that).  But bigotry and fanaticism will always be with us.  It gathers more weight when uttered by sociopathic members of the rich elites—their money backs it up.  A cultural change is needed.  There will always be more bigots and fanatics as long as the cultural forces that create them exist.  Society needs to turn all that negative energy into something more positive, and at all levels, not just at the level of the one-percenters.  Change will come eventually.  I hope it’s not violent, but it’s been too long since those Black track-and-field stars raised their fists.

And so it goes….

 

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