The "Redneck" Mentality

The latest - certainly, not the last - public ethnic or racial comment in American politics is proof positive that this is something that is uppermost in the country's mind, ready to surface at any moment. A South Carolina legislator has referred to a fellow lawmaker of Indian ancestry as a "raghead", while using the same derogatory term in relation to Obama. If this is how a significant portion of the American public thinks about public officials of certain foreign ancestries, one can only imagine how they truly feel about people in those other countries. As I've said before, this is why Americans find it so easy to bomb all those "ragheads" from manned or, increasingly, unmanned aircraft.

First, you dehumanize the "other"; then, you destroy him.

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