"Change is a motherf*cker when you run from it"

As the backlash develops to what Dr. William Barber II calls the "third reconstruction," I am reminded of how perceptively Derrick Jensen described what we're seeing these days in his book The Culture of Make Believe.

From the perspective of those who are entitled, the problems begin when those they despise do not go along with—and have the power and wherewithal to not go along with—the perceived entitlement...

Several times I have commented that hatred felt long and deeply enough no longer feels like hatred, but more like tradition, economics, religion, what have you. It is when those traditions are challenged, when the entitlement is threatened, when the masks of religion, economics, and so on are pulled away that hate transforms from its more seemingly sophisticated, "normal," chronic state—where those exploited are looked down upon, or despised—to a more acute and obvious manifestation. Hate becomes more perceptible when it is no longer normalized.

Another way to say all of this is that if the rhetoric of superiority works to maintain the entitlement, hatred and direct physical force remains underground. But when that rhetoric begins to fail, force and hatred waits in the wings, ready to explode.

In other words, this is not some new sexism, racism, homophobia that is showing its face. Its been there all along - disguised as tradition (Paula Deen) or religion (Mike Huckabee). What has changed is that women, people of color and LGBT are developing the "power and wherewithal to not go along with the perceived entitlement." Fear and hatred can no longer be normalized and are thus being exposed.

I think its important that we recognize this so that we see what is happening as the result of progress rather than feed our own fears about going backward. The beast is in its death throes and everyone - I mean EVERYONE - knows how this story is going to end eventually. That's what they're so afraid of.

America will soon belong to the men and women — white and black and Latino and Asian, Christian and Jew and Muslim and atheist, gay and straight — who can walk into a room and accept with real comfort the sensation that they are in a world of certain difference, that there are no real majorities, only pluralities and coalitions. The America in which it was otherwise is dying, thank god, and those who relied on entitlement and division to command power will either be obliged to accept the changes, or retreat to the gated communities from which they wish to wax nostalgic and brood on political irrelevance...

Hard times are still to come for all of us. Rear guard actions will be fought at every political crossroad. But make no mistake: Change is a motherfucker when you run from it. And right now, the conservative movement in America is fleeing from dramatic change that is certain and immutable...

Regardless of what happens with his second term, Barack Obama’s great victory has already been won: We are all the other now, in some sense... And now, normal isn’t white or straight or Christian. There is no normal. That word, too, means less with every moment. And those who continue to argue for such retrograde notions as a political reality will become less germane and more ridiculous with every passing year.