Terese Mailhot: Racism prevails in American popular culture

We’ve heard your rhetoric, white person, and we’re still not buying the idiots who prevail in popular culture today. Look at Donald Trump and Anne Coulter, and on the left, people like Bill Maher, who are lauded for being honest and telling it like it is. Some consider this an uprising. In an era of political correctness, these people are unafraid to speak their minds and offend, but to me it seems like the same old white man rhetoric Natives have been hearing for years. While Natives have some of our own rhetorical pitfalls, we should be more vocal in the face of this new/old trend of ‘telling it like it is.’

While Anne Coulter believes herself to be Native American, she’s also exploiting the terrorist attacks in Paris to promote her awful anti-Muslim agenda. Her opinions appeal to the lowest common denominator of the American population: the under-educated, angry, white racist, who thinks Manifest Destiny was positive for our country overall.

While she’s saying Muslims ruin the world, Donald Trump is trying to ethnically cleanse the US. What I find most abhorrent is that these people are lauded for their honesty as if it’s refreshing to see old white racists spew their hate without regard. One only has to look at the comment section on any story about cultural appropriation on any news site to see idiocy is alive and all too common in America. The core of our country was founded on hypocrisy, deceit and exploitation, why wouldn’t these people be popular among the default race.