John McCain Was a White American Hero

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/john-mccain-was-a-white-american-hero-1828628891

John McCain was a white American man, whose whiteness and Americanness and maleness were his most prominent and predictable characteristics. He was also considered to be a hero. Barack Obama spoke on McCain’s “courage to put the greater good above our own.” Joe Biden remarked that McCain’s life was “proof that some truths are timeless.” There are many other tributes like this from many other prominent American and international figures, each extolment more gracious and fawning than the last, fitting for a man who put his life on the line for his country as a young man and then, for his remaining years on Earth, continued to serve it.

This sort of veneration will likely be the legacy that prevails when he’s regarded by history. I do not disagree with it. He was, in the context of whiteness, in the context of Americaness, in the context of maleness, and in the context of what those things fused together are intended to mean, a hero.

That McCain is considered and will continue to be considered heroic is less a way of synopsizing his life and more a testimony on whiteness and Americanness and maleness. Or, more accurately, an indictment. And we do not have to look further than the very recent past for proof. We know, for instance, that despite his conspicuous animus for President Trump and the type of nasty, dishonorable, and cowardly Americanness Trump represents—an Americanness that John McCain considered himself above—he was so aligned politically with this man he detested that he voted with him 83 percent of the time. And we know that his choice to select the squirrelly and thick-witted Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008 paved the way for Trump’s ascension, the way a fart leads way to a shit.

There were many other decisions like this; careful and measured political choices that aligned McCain with what was (and is) the status quo for white American men. There was his dogmatic support of the Iraq War. Which, to be fair, he later admitted was a mistake. But, as Splinter’s Paul Blest articulated, he didn’t seem to learn many lessons from it.

[msongs]

1. the truth of McCain is in his voting record, not the PR image he built of himself nt

[malaise]

2. Didn't he also vote against the MLK holiday? n/t

[AlexSFCA]

6. he does learn but it may take decades

e.g., he was a staunch oppoent of gays serving in the military and then was the most vocal critic of repealing ‘don’t ask don’t tell’. But more recently he showed support for transgender people serving in the military after trump issued a ban.
He probably did support same sex marriage in 2018, if not, he would have by 2020 or so.

[Anon-C]

3. Fairly noted.

[cynatnite]

4. The fact that he refused to leave his POW brothers says a lot about him...

I've hated some of his votes, his views and disagreed with him politically a lot.

But that man will always have my respect for the fact that he refused to be released unless all the POW's were freed.

[trixie2]

5. I agree with you

[John Fante]

7. Sorry, but that's a poor article.

I'll take the Obama route on this one. I'm sure he disagreed with a boatload of McCain's political positions, but he doesn't feel the need to shit on the guy (or inexplicably arguing that he's seen as a hero because he was white) because of it.

[Caliman73]

8. It's a matter of perspective.

President Obama has his reasons for behaving the way he does, especially in these type of situations. It is perfectly fine to accept one over the other and for you to think that it is a shit article as well, however, the author is expressing a point of view from the perspective of people of color who see the differences in the way that White people and Black or Brown people are treated in the US.