Somebody Else's Babies

Although I'd like to think I speak fluent "white asshole" having grown up around that dialect my whole life, I spent a long while staring at this comment wondering why Iowa Rep. Steve King (R) thought babies of any particular parentage weren't capable of carrying on with "our civilization". There's nothing about what I think of as American culture that excludes the children of immigrants--on the contrary! Our American way is made up of immigrants who wanted to work hard and achieve a good standard of living, to experience freedom of thought, religion and political access denied to them in their home countries. I, like Steve King, am the descendant of European immigrants. There is nothing about me that privileges me to better understand America as a German/Irish/English, etc. mutt,  than a child of any other heritage because we are a nation on paper, made of laws and words and ideals, but not bloodlines.

A baby learns language. A baby learns religion. A baby learns what their parents or guardians and the world around them teach it.  But one thing a baby shouldn't be expected to do is "restore a civilization". Steve King supposes a civilization already in peril. It is for adults to lead and teach--not to count on children, who can only learn what is around them, regardless of who their mothers and fathers are. If our civilization is so fucked it is down to diaper-wearers to rescue it, maybe it was already fatally flawed?

But this is just more racist nonsense from a tiresome racist--an Iowan who for some reason sports a Confederate flag on his desk:

and has a history of saying appallingly white nativist things. But he has been representing his district in Iowa since 2003. As a US Representative. While being pretty openly racist.

I guess what I'm getting at is, this whole thing where liberals say things like "Some conservatives are racist" (not, by the way, all conservatives are, because fuck no, and fuck that, and "Strawman, much?") this guy is what we're talking about. The guy who doesn't realize nonwhite civilization is also a thing. (It has actually been most of the civilized things.) The guy who gets kudos from David Duke and Richard Spencer:

Rep @SteveKingIA is praised by two of the biggest #WhiteSupremacist names in the country. Take note, #GOP, this is the company you keep. pic.twitter.com/be57Y4EpGe

— Avi Bueno (@JasperAvi) March 13, 2017

Which reminds us of?

I'll take our chances of continuing civilization with "somebody else's babies" over reinforcing Steve King's hateful bullshit, any time.