White Women’s Tears
White women’s tears is the symbol for how when women white cry, whatever racial issues are hand at transformed into something that puts the interest of white society first. The symbolism covers everything from the fake crying of white woman falsely accusing men of rape to the genuine sincerity of white women crying at the sight of racist violence. In the latter case, even through the sincerity, the result becomes the same: it is the crying woman who gets the attention rather than object of violence.
“The Blind Side”
The film which earned Sandra Bullock an Oscar for Best Actress is about a white upper class family who takes in and nurtures an underprivileged young black man and helps to guide him into becoming a NFL player. Although on the surface, the film is ostensibly an anti-racist film, the author deconstructs its imagery to reveal it as a symbol of “white savior” form of racism which suggests that many black people in America need the assistance of courageous and nobly non-racist whites to succeed.
“Girl”
The single world “girl” becomes a symbol for every seemingly benign and mundane term that stimulates a racial confrontation. The specific use is by a teacher toward an African-American female student who took exception even though another student informed her that the teacher called all the girls “girl.” The underlying racial connotations of which the teacher was unaware combined with the quite natural feeling of being singled out since the other student rose to the teacher’s defense make this a symbol of how unsteady and unsure the footing can often been when dealing with racial tension.
Marching in the Sixties
The defense of having taken part in civil rights marches in the 1960’s becomes a symbol of the ways in which many white people refuse to admit to even the possibility of holding racist sentiments. It works along the same lines of denying this potential on the grounds of having grown up white but poor, having family members who are black or even having spent time in Africa.
"Make America Great Again"
The famously undelivered promise which became the slogan of the 2016 campaign for President by Donald Trump is signified as a symbol of the powerful way in which the real problems caused for so many people in America has been shifted to an undeserved phantom. The author outlines how all the common complaints shared by those under the MAGA umbrella—low wages, job losses, exporting of industry to foreign countries, crumbling infrastructure and collapse of “traditional family values” have come about while the country and economy has unquestionably and irrefutably been in the muscular grip of white men. The ideological thrust of MAGA is one which somehow successfully shifted (in the minds of tens of millions of people) the blame for all these problems to powerless groups of people of color.
