The Bandwagon of Hate: America’s Cancer
This is an exercise in dismantling whiteness, white supremacy racism, race and the ideologies that create the socioeconomic disparities we see between people of color and their European counterparts. For this to work, you must read a lot, not just my whimsical ramblings but the many articles and studies I’ve linked throughout this document. Many of my perspectives come from the content of those works, but there is also a fair of amount of insight to be gained simply by existing within a nation that never really feels like home.
I have put great effort into coupling my opinions with historical references and other sound affirming data, but I am human; so there may be some mistakes here and there. I simply ask that you not dismiss the entirety of what is said for having read something perceived as wrong on your part or said in error on mine. I will, at times use sarcasm, humor, and dialogue to clarify a point, but I do these things not because this topic is in any way something to take lightly. They are tools to soften the blow for you, the reader, and me the bareknuckle writer. I am neither trying to draw blood or break my hand in the process of dropping some rather heavy accusations, facts, and opinions on some sleeping heads.
If you haven’t heard, another killer roams free, this one without a trial. The wing-nuts are frothing at the mouth with excitement. The long silent masses now all have opinions on why Michael Brown deserved death. Some brown folks of varying shades have decided to beat the long-dead horse of respectability politics, rambling on and on about property and nonviolence and how “negroes” just need to act better if they want respect. Others are just so overwhelmed by how much damage and destruction black folks are doing to “their communities” that they can’t help but speak out against it. And others are still spewing the tired nonsense of “black on black” crime? There are even a desperate few still clamoring for more evidence. No, not evidence against Darren Wilson, but more evidence to exonerate him.
What do all these people have in common? What unifies Americans more than almost anything else? Pissing on the graves of dead black people, that’s what.
It is almost like a nervous tick. From topnotch scholars of history like Rudy Giuliani who decries black on black crime, to the always morally superior Cosby who just wants black folks to act right, to keeper of secrets Charles Barkley spilling the beans on black people’s “lazy negro” problem, to a former “friend” (Vietnamese) who, when asked why she was so against dating a guy who liked her, told me matter-of-factly that “White men are better. They just are”, they all find themselves in the enviable position of having to put silly ass black folk in their place. They just cannot help themselves, and neither can those shifty ne’er do well Negroes they are trying to cure of their pathological blackness.
Now, what exactly is pathology? And how does it affect black people? In its simplest terms, a pathology is a set of behaviors or disorders caused by disease. In terms of black pathology, it is the attribution of negative stereotypes (social constructs) to black skin (genetics). To simplify, black people are lazy because the thing that makes them black also makes them lazy, or violent, aggressive, hypersexual, or ignorant. Basically, you get to pick any behavioral stereotype you want and apply it broadly to black people. What’s the problem with this logic? Aside from there being no scientific evidence to support the idea of black pathology, it is meant to diagnose black people as broken. Now why in the world would anyone want to do that?
That is a damned good question. Why would anyone want to label an entire group of people as inherently broken? What benefit is there to such logic? Well, if you’re black there are few socio-economic benefits. You are assumed to be volatile, lazy, and ignorant on sight. But if you are a country that is steeped in a history of stolen wealth, abuse, subjugation, and oppression of black people, it is a convenient excuse to never right the wrongs done to black people. It’s not the history of chattel slavery, or Jim Crow laws, or housing discrimination/redlining, or GI bill discrimination, or imbalanced drug enforcement laws and policies, disparate incarceration rates, heavily policed communities, substandard public schools, job discrimination, and limited access to well-paying jobs and higher education that explains why black people have so little wealth and make up such a large portion of the world’s prison population. No, no, no, black people are broken! Throw your hands in the air, flip a table and walk away.
What can you possibly do with a broken thing that simply cannot be fixed? Nothing. “Fuck em! They did it to themselves!” And that’s exactly how most of the US sees the black community. That is a strange idea to foster though, is it not? If black people were really broken and pathologically prone to social malady, so too would the artifacts of their malignant culture be diseased and dangerous. But our jazz, our hip-hop, our style, our vernacular, our hair, and even our color have all been appropriated and labeled “American” while the black people who created those cultural artifacts remain anything but. It would seem that everybody wants to be black as long as they don’t have to be.
Beyond the aforementioned narrative/curricula, what drives such a pernicious anti-black ideology? Whiteness, white privilege and the inherent understanding that no matter what you may be, at least you are not that maligned thing over there. In the minds of many, it is the ultimate safeguard against sinking to the socioeconomic bottom. Hate these lazy people; ignore their pleas for justice and equality, and they’ll become the bloated masses on which you can proudly float above the worst of what society has to offer. It is “divide and conquer” with a twist.
Dare I say, it is virtually impossible to live in the US and not develop a healthy hatred of the brown skinned other. If not by virtue of the way those poor wretches are presented as a malady unto themselves, then by virtue of living as one who knows their life means much less than the person whose skin is lighter, whose opinions are doubted, and whose talents are often overlooked. How can I be so certain? Because I too had been infected by hatred and harbored more than a few negative feelings towards those with skin like my own. With great effort, I unlearned the hate by delving deeper into this country’s unfiltered history. I learned rather quickly that everything I saw as a permanent feature of blackness was, instead, a symptom of long-term oppression, racism (both systemic and personal), and foreign and US policy. ßThat is a must read link, people.
Before we can talk about white privilege, we must discuss the strong desire to be white and claim whiteness. First and foremost, whiteness cannot be separated from slavery or being black. The distinction of whiteness, malleable and ever changing, was a necessity of the times from which it comes. Poor whites and poor blacks were getting a bit too chummy, so a new category was created and one group was given privileges such as wages for their toils, the right to marry, protections under the law, the right to own property, and the knowledge that their children would not become tradable items in the market, while the other was oppressed and denied the aforementioned privileges as well as many others. “Here you go person with white skin have these things. You can keep them so long as you don’t share with those Negroes. Keep them down, and we, their masters, will lift you up.”
Clinging to whiteness amid the chaos and destruction such a social construct creates is tantamount to extoling the virtues of powdered asbestos to the scores of people dying from its use. And in much the same way as asbestos cares not for your creed or nationality, it will eventually harm those who think themselves immune. But what is whiteness, really? It’s not just the social construct of ages gone by used to divide the poor blacks from the poor whites. Without doubt, it is definitely that, yet it is something much more, something insidious and inherently malignant.
Whiteness is a cloak to hide European heritage just as much as it is a pillow over the faces of those with no such heritage. To be white is to lose one’s identity and become a part of a collective that has no nationality. No real history. It is, at its roots, just a statement of contrast that screams, “Where I come from doesn’t matter, as long I’m not mistaken for the pitiable ‘other’ over there.” To proudly proclaim “I’m white!” is a slap in the face to those who don’t have the luxury of identifying their homeland and enjoying, or potentially dismaying over, such historical revelations. “You there, are German and Irish. And you, you’re Swedish and Iranian. And you, you’re Turkish and Icelandic.” Thus, “whiteness” becomes an optional group identity to be taken advantage of when its privileges are useful and to be discarded when its sordid history comes under scrutiny.
The most common attempt to rapidly discard whiteness I am aware of starts like this, “My ancestors never owned slaves.” This is, of course, a lazy attempt to end the discussion on reparations, slavery or any other such historical slight. It is particularly lazy when one considers the economic component of slavery. After all, slavery was not some minor thing that only helped southern slave owners to become rich tycoons. Slaves were treated as investment capital, and as such, investors the world over profited from chattel slavery, including investors in Europe and those in the northern states of the Union. To translate, the rich nations of the world, including the United States of America, profited tremendously from the transatlantic slave trade and the centuries of chattel slavery that followed, and vast swaths of the white population just “forgot”. Somehow I doubt these same people will ever forget Michael Vick or OJ Simpson.
“Slavery? What? Us? I don’t recall…”
“They did what to dogs and white women!? I have to bring this up with every black person I meet!”
For those people born of US soil who can easily trace their roots only so far back as chattel slavery, their group identity, much like the shackles that bound their ancestors, is forced upon them. Their heritage is loosely tide to a continent large enough to hold most others in its borders (though you’d never know it by looking at most maps) but clearly rooted in the one they must call home. There is no easy option to discard that group identity. Even if the choice to do so is strongly pursued, how exactly does one go about discarding the very skin in which they live? Barring some extreme and costly measures or the fortune of being passable (appearing to be “white”), there is no escaping blackness or the stigma that goes with it. They are the descendants of slaves, a people so surreptitiously mixed and traded, that finding their exact Nubian origins (complete with names, birth dates, achievements and failures) becomes a task so labor intensive and burdensome that few even trouble to do so.
So while many black/African-Americans will say they are the sons and daughters of kings and queens from this land or that, most, and likely nearly all, have no idea where, or whom, they really come from. They, my people, are, in effect and truth, orphans, relics of an abhorrent system used to build powerful nations as cheaply as possible. And too, we are a people whose history is irrevocably linked to a tortuous past, a past that made this country and others economic powerhouses. Our true heritage, in all likelihood, is no less or no more interesting than that of any other American, but it is one obscured by the specter of slavery and the narrative of white supremacist oppression.
If the mantle of a maligned pigment isn’t casually wreaking havoc on the minds of those who aren’t black (from clutching purses to denying opportunities, to supporting disparately harmful legislation-Stop and Frisk, mandatory-minimum sentences, drug policy-etc.), it is often enough doing so in black and brown minds and bodies on a moment by moment basis (think stress and stress-related illness, think Incredible Hulk just wanting to be left alone, think self-hatred, think mental illness, and too, think woe and despair because there are some for whom the burden is too much to bear). Neither affluence, fame, good demeanor, nor the keenest of articulation and political might can hide or immunize one from the stigma and dangers of being black in America.
I stated earlier that “whiteness”, based on the many observations made previously, becomes an optional group identity to be taken advantage of when its privileges are useful and to be discarded when its sordid history comes under scrutiny. But what exactly does that mean and why should anyone care? It means there are some undeniable benefits to being a member of the VIC (very important color) group; however, there are also quite a few negatives as well.
Highest on my list of VIC benefits is not getting murdered(a legal term that requires one actually be put on trial and convicted) killed on a regular basis by trigger-happy cops or vigilantes, but there are numerous others that I find personally irritating/frustrating. But for every positive aspect, there is obviously a negative counterpart, not only for black people but for VIC people as well.
If a white person says it, and damn it all, if they say it on TV, it will likely be taken seriously. Be it a minor thing or a major one, if a white person says it, even if it has been said by a million black people prior, that white voice is the one with gravitas. Short of Neil deGrasse Tyson, Morgan Freeman, and Oprah, few black people can assert they enjoy such a privilege. But even those individuals will rapidly come under fire or find themselves disrespected if they aren’t recognized. After all, someone actually doubted Oprah could afford an expensive purse, and even Obama was called a liar while giving a speech on healthcare reform to the House. Black people also find themselves being doubted not only in fancy boutiques or on the House floor, they are also doubted by their own physicians, which just might complicate that whole “living” thing everyone seems to enjoy so much.
Credulity also has another dark side. If the default position is that every white person is probably telling the truth, then those who would do others harm and who happen to be white are able to harm with impunity. Outside of the scores of white people continuing to believe anything the numerous blondes and bloviating men on FOX news have to say, the most common abuse of credulity that directly harms black people, and black men in particular, is the “white woman victimized by a black man” narrative. And note, it doesn’t have to be a white woman telling the lie, only that a white woman had been victimized by a black man for the lie to become credible. Some examples:
Baby Sitter Blamed “Two Black Men” for Home Robbery
Tim Cole exonerated 10 years after his death
Sister Mary Turcotte (even nuns)
Those are just a few of the many I recall, but one could always browse the profiles of the falsely accused by visiting the Innocence Project website. Or one could read up on the history of lynching. And after taking it all in, reexamine my previous statements on credulity and the harm it causes.
White people get to be individuals. Granted, this privilege is most often bestowed upon a white person who has done something bad. Take for instance the number of serial killers and mass shooters who are identified as troubled or broken individuals and whose behaviors are all their own and not endemic of all white people. Few people ask about white on white crime or the dismantling of the white family structure when a white person goes on a rampage. Let the only Tyron in Texas snatch a purse and the every network under the sun will cart out the beleaguered spirit of the black community in hopes of being the first to start the lynching anew.
The negative side of this is that the white community, unlike the black community on a routine basis, never really has cause to examine whiteness or what it means to be privileged because of it. It allows white people to think that their every success is because of their hard work and not because of systemic advantages. On the contrary, it has black people believing they themselves are to blame for their failings and not the corrupt system that impedes many of them.
That’s right, white people are magical. No, that’s not what I mean. I mean things associated with whiteness are considered the norm, so much so that things which don’t fit the “normal” criteria must be labeled as “other” so as not to confuse or befuddle: Black History Month vs. month, black culture vs. culture, black on black crime vs. crime, affirmative action vs. employment, Black magic vs. … wait… no, scratch that last one. You get my point.
“White” is an invisible adjective hovering in front of most things people consider normal or neutral. So entrenched are the minds of many white people in the unstated idea of whiteness as default, that they have developed a persecution complex. When people of color (POC) push against this ideological monolith or try to claim some aspect of society as their own, they are often greeted with tremendous backlash.
“Affirmative action is totally unfair! What if white people were automatically given jobs just because they were white!?”
That has to be joke right? Simply having a black sounding name is a barrier to employment. Felons are a completely different story. No, not black men with felonies but white men with felony records who are still more likely to land a job than a black man without a criminal record. That same linked study makes it very clear that when both white and black applicants have felony records, which should be obvious, the white applicant has a better chance of getting the job. Race seems to be a very important factor in the hiring process, even if it is against the law. One might say affirmative action is a reaction to discriminatory practices.
“There is no ‘white’ history month.”
Pretty much every month is white history month, even the watered down and maligned black history month that ventures not much farther into black history than Martin Luther King and one speech. Rarely, if ever, do people hear about other people’s (note white or Euro-centric) history in the American classroom.
Last I checked, POC did not spontaneously come into existence sans history and past experiences. Though I might be mistaken, I am pretty sure black folks in particular played an important role or two in building this place. By “place” I mean the land stolen from native peoples.
“What if we went around saying ‘white power’ and ‘white pride’?”
There is no reason to say “white power” or “white pride”; the “white” is silent. It is fair to say that white people have plenty white power and white pride without having it vocalized. If you already have all or most of the power and then go around flaunting it, what are people who have little to no power supposed to think? “Stingy assholes” is probably the kindest of thoughts, especially when one considers the history of the white power movement (AKA oppression movement) and its ties to American Nazism and the Klu Klux Klan. Black power, by contrast, is about empowerment linked to the anti-racism and the civil rights movements of the 60’s.
According to a few studies, forgetting is a healthy thing, and many know the old adage, “Ignorance is bliss”. That in mind and taken to the white American scale of forgetting and ignorance, this nation is bound to produce a few extremely happy immortals before long. Yet, I find the pattern of what is remembered and forgotten a little too convenient. Hell, it almost seems intentional:
“Native American genocide? Don’t they own casinos?”
“Frederick Douglas who? What does he have to do with independence day?
“1921? Nothing important happened back then.”
“Black Wall Street? Never heard of it. Meh…”
“The Japanese bombed Pearly Harbor!? We’re going to war!”
“Internment camps? What internment camps?”
The price of your selective amnesia is that the other peoples with whom you share this nation are forced to carry the burden of your history and theirs alone. “So what”, you say? As the majority of the policy makers, your forgetfulness and ignorance can have dire consequences for your fellow citizens and yourselves. Consider the following ironies:
A nation of immigrants decrying immigration.
Drug laws and the white men now getting rich from selling marijuana while black men sit in prison for having done the same thing.
Surprise at police militarization while POC have complained for decades about police abuses.
My rambling now at an end, what is next? I will try answering some of the questions I imagine many people might have, and I will use this as an opportunity to share some thoughts that I did not thoroughly cover previously.
“It’s not my place to speak on these issues. I’m not black.”
One of the more sinister aspects of whiteness is the reluctance to talk about race for fear of being misunderstood or for lack of understanding. I have hated this argument for a long time. For some reason or another, great swaths of men are feminist, many heterosexual men and women are standing with and supporting the rights of the LGBT community, but for some mysterious reason, when it comes to even discussing the woes of being black in the US, the chorus of white liberal voices becomes sporadic. Suddenly, people need firsthand experience at being a thing to defend its right to exist.
"He had it coming" is the story you're telling every black child with your silence. You are solidifying in their minds that the rules to this broken game are very different when applied to brown skin.
"Don't you dare make mistakes. Don't you dare offend. Don't you dare be confident. Don't you dare frighten people with your presence. Don't you dare drive that nice car. Don't you dare knock on my door. Don't you dare walk through my store. Don't you dare speak your mind. Don't you dare marry my child. And don't you DARE complain!”
“You should know your place. You should leave the womb with all your knowledge intact and ready to face every challenge. You may be held to a standard far beyond comprehension, but you are not human, and you sure as hell aren't an American citizen. You're a thug. You're a menace. You're angry, and you're scary. You're lazy and good for nothing. Your names are weird. Your speech is strange. Your attire is unseemly. Oh, and that fucking hair, I hate it! You are not normal and we hate you.”
“But some of you animals, are pretty entertaining, struggling the way you do. So at the very least, we'd like to sell you, claim dominion over whatever it is you hateful things create, call THAT "Ⓐⓜⓔⓡⓘⓒⓐⓝ" and leave you to bleed out in the street like an unwanted dog for all the other trash to see. You're welcome."
You say a lot by saying nothing at all...
If you don’t like what this country is doing to its black citizens, speak up! We need your support. This country needs your support. Avoiding the conversation will not make the problem go away. Use that privilege of credulity to undermine the system in ways that few black people could ever hope to do. Be it at the dinner table, the next office meeting, or on social media, every little action matters. Solidarity can break this crazy machine that is devouring our nation, and black people, quite literally, cannot be the majority actors in this fight.
“I’m getting tired of hearing about racism. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
How tired do you think the families of the dead, incarcerated, wrongly accused, and disenfranchised are? We've all imbibed the racism cocktails being served in this country, so there is as much to unlearn as there is to learn. Black people cannot, and should not, carry the burden of both educator and front-line fighter in the struggle against racism. There are roles to play for everyone at every level of this rickety house of cards we brazenly call United. Honestly, it is about time for the majority to stop being the minority on important issues.
“You sure talked a lot about my ancestors and such, Mr. Black guy. What if I like being white?”
Not a problem. Being white is just fine, as long as you’re willing to admit that whiteness, as a concept, is inherently about privilege, classism, oppression, subjugation, selective amnesia, unpaid reparations, colonialism, systemic racism, genocide, and theft. Honestly, I’d prefer people just admit their true heritage, and not cling so tightly to one that nets them short term gains while doing so much harm to themselves and others.
If understanding what whiteness is remains a difficult concept to grasp, worry not. Read up on Theodore William Allen or watch any of the lectures on this playlist discussing his book The Invention of the White Race.
“This is so divisive! What good can possibly come of talking about racism?”
If I were a crazy person, I’d carry on in the grand American tradition of pretending racism is a thing of the past every five to ten years, but I’m not crazy. And no one should expect a different outcome by using the same approach time and time again. I am intentionally stirring the pot here in hopes of getting the filthier aspects of our society on everyone’s plate. Why? Because as it stands, a large portion of nation goes about their day as if there is nothing wrong and nothing to fix in this country. Blinded by their comfort, they remain silent or painfully unaware of the danger inherent in allowing the racial divide and economic disparities to grow. There really is no way to undo the damage that has been done without the help of the majority. And let’s be real about this, at 230+ million strong, self-identified whites have a whole hell of a lot more power to dismantle the system many tacitly support than do the 38 million black people it harms the most.
“What’s up with this reparations talk? We don’t owe you people anything!”
What do you mean by “you people”? Huh!? Kidding aside, the history of paying reparations to those harmed by the actions of a government isn’t a new concept.
USA to Japanese internment camp survivors
Germany to various nations
US to Various Native American tribes in the form of trust funds
These trust funds were grossly mismanaged and a settlement for this mismanagement was reach rather recently
US to former slave owners. Wait, wtf?
“On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia. Passage of this law came 8 1/2 months before President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The act brought to a conclusion decades of agitation aimed at ending what antislavery advocates called "the national shame" of slavery in the nation's capital. It provided for immediate emancipation, compensation to former owners who were loyal to the Union of up to $300 for each freed slave, voluntary colonization of former slaves to locations outside the United States, and payments of up to $100 for each person choosing emigration. Over the next 9 months, the Board of Commissioners appointed to administer the act approved 930 petitions, completely or in part, from former owners for the freedom of 2,989 former slaves.” National Archives and Records Administration
Yea, that’s right. The US paid reparations to those poor disenfranchised slave owners for having to give up their property, property like my unpaid ancestors.
Now who hates math!? “I do! I do!” Too bad, let’s give it a go anyway.
If we low ball every freed person’s value to say… 120 bucks (two fifths of 300) and multiply that figure by the number of former slaves mentioned above and we will have the number of 1862 US dollars paid to former slave owners: $120 x 2989 = $358680. I wonder how much money that is in today’s dollars.
Using one of many online inflation calculators we arrive at: $8,341,395.35. Must be nice getting paid to do something right for a change. “Good on you for not trading, purchasing, and breeding humans like livestock. Here’s a reward and your platinum racism rewards card.”
Let us be honest, what are the chances that these good and moral owners of people, would allow their freed property to potentially receive near as much for their freedom as did their former owners for having set them free? I doubt $120 is anywhere close to what they received on average, and I do not doubt that these owners of people made substantial profits from having a free labor force for hundreds of years. And let us not forget about the wealth western nations gained from chattel slavery over all either.
“I have black friends, and they say this is all bull!”
First and foremost, congratulations because according to a recent study, most white people have 1 or 0 black friends. I commend you for your urban outreach (or something?). But there’s a lot more here than just my opinion on things, there’s data, there are trends, there are behaviors, institutions and systems discussed and analyzed throughout my rambling essay.
What exactly don’t you and your coveted brown friends agree with? And how does their disagreement with what is here outweigh all the evidence before you? Better yet, have you tried asking a black person who wasn’t your friend how they felt? Did you actually read this whole thing or did you just skip to this section? Did you not read the linked articles and stories?
“I’m black, and I’m not a victim. I worked hard to get out of the (please insert problematic situation or location here), and I’m doing alright.”
It’s nice of you to believe that, but I disagree. All of us, every color and nationality, have been infected by or continue to harbor the anti-black biases that are reinforced by the policies, systems, and rhetoric of this country. So subtle is the indoctrination that many black people who “make it out” rarely ask themselves a simple question. Why exactly did you start out in the situation or location from which you strongly desired to escape?
It is the same reason, brainwashing, so many white people will point to individuals who make these “I made it out” statements without ever questioning why they started there while simultaneously ignoring the much larger group of black people who say where we start and where many of us are kept is a systemic problem that needs to be addressed.
“I’m poor and white. Why should I care about black people’s problems?”
One, I have no doubt that you have a heritage reaching further back and much richer, morally and culturally, than that of a wealthy land owner’s label of division.
Two, black people’s problems are this nation’s problems. What happens to us eventually happens to everyone else.
Third, many of the problems in this country are the direct result of racism being used to target and dismantle or block a number of social programs, from public transportation to universal healthcare. Of course there are white people in poverty, but even many of those poor whites would vote against their best interests to spite black people, whom they believe are lazy thugs, welfare queens, pathological deviants and other such nonsense spoon-fed into their deranged bigoted minds by the Southern Strategy and its media outlet, FOX news: “If we implement this, those lazy good for nothing inner city folks will abuse it! These are your tax dollars, not theirs, so they’ll be stealing your money!”
The exploitation of black people has been going on since before the founding of this country, but black people are only 13% of the population. There isn't much money in only screwing over a small part of the population. Predatory lending started in black communities, but no one cared because it was just black folks. A couple of generations later, and the banks went after bigger fish, queue the housing crisis and the current economic downturn.
Worried about militarized police? Police have been terrorizing black communities since black communities became a thing after being emancipated, but again, few (sure as hell not the vast majority of white people) cared.
Under the ludicrous guise of fighting a war on drugs, already marginalized black communities were policed, harassed, and further devastated. A generation later, the police have new toys and under the guise of fighting terrorism, they are bullying and flexing their unnecessary muscle in many black neighborhoods and a growing number of white neighborhoods near you.
To put it simply, racism, specifically systemic racism, is a cancer that many people in this country allowed to spread. Black people have been trying to talk about this cancer for decade after decade and generation after generation, but they were ignored. It started as a cancer just eating away at the surface, only affecting the "unimportant" minority. Now it has spread to other organs and into the bones, and all of a sudden, "head in the sand" "racism isn't a problem" "I'm colorblind" folks from shore to shore have "awoken" to a country teetering on the verge of a stage 4 cancer.
While the protests in Ferguson and across the country are primarily about the devastation of the black community at the hands of overzealous and bigoted police forces, they are also about the coming devastation of a nation, whose history of indifference to the hardships of its own citizens, could lead to its catastrophic downfall. Either you care about the future of this country by doing your part to undermine and destroy the cancers that are white supremacy and systemic racism or you welcome the downfall with open arms.
By the way, there is no stage 5. Well, actually there is a; it's called death.
“How can you keep saying ‘many white people’ this and ‘many white people’ that and not call yourself a racist!?”
According to the 2013 census data, self-identified whites are 77% of the US population and self-identified blacks were only 13%. Based on those percentages, how exactly is it possible for policies that harm black communities to continue getting passed without the white vote? True enough lobbying dollars play a major role in these outcomes (I’ll not ask you to consider the race of the people who run the major lobbying groups, but it is a fair guess that those with money tend to have the spare change with which to lobby), but the silence of those in the majority is tacit support for these policies as well. If it were not for the majority of white people, either through direct action or tacitly through inaction, supporting these policies, they would not get passed. You don’t have to take my word for it though. Just hearing that black people are the ones being harmed most by a policy garners said policy more support by, you guessed it, white people.
So while I would love to take the colorblind approach, join hands, and sing Kumbaya instead of rocking the boat and breaking white people’s immersion, it would absolve them of some much needed guilt and responsibility for their continued complicity. Guilt free, many white people would continue riding the train of privilege while proclaiming they had done nothing to harm the people it maims and dismembers along the way. As Howard Zinn put it, “You can't be neutral on a moving train.”
“People are suffering all over the place. Black people don’t have it as bad as (insert group likely suffering from post-colonial stress disorder and oppression abroad), so stop complaining.”
First, I am not one for comparative suffering being a reason to avoid discussing mass incarceration, problems within the justice system, police homicide rates and who is most likely to be killed.
Second, I think people are reaching very wrong conclusions about the suffering of strangers. The take away from it should not be, "They have it bad, so I/they should stop complaining about my/their problems." A better stance would be, "I'm not alone in my suffering, so we should work together to undo/fix the systems and behaviors that cause their suffering and my own."
The first perspective devalues individual experiences and undermines progress. It's pretty hard to know what needs to be fixed if we openly proclaim there's nothing to be upset about. The silence and head nodding that follows becomes tacit support of the status quo, effectively stifling progress. The second perspective is one of unity and progress. And I must ask, what is bad about becoming more unified and progressive? For the majority of us, that is our tendency, but I think it better for us all to stop stumbling, floundering about and waiting for the slow tide of progress to rise on its own. Relief is especially time-sensitive to those who are suffering, making the wait for tomorrow's progressive surge all the more inhumane.
“Dude, bro, homie, things aren’t that bad. I’m happy and positive. Why are you so pessimistic and negative?”
Contrary to what some may think, I expect a lot from humanity. If I were just a pessimist going through the motions (openly demanding we improve while secretly thinking us incompetent scum), I'd be far less angry, and too, resigned to our nations the inevitable collapse if we continue on as we are and have in the past. But that isn’t me…
I think we are, first and foremost, capable: capable of far better outcomes than we currently produce. It is important more people come to this realization before our capacity to correct our mistakes is overwhelmed by the compounding magnitude of the mistakes we continue to make. My greatest fear is that the World will become barren, bereft of life in all its amazing forms, not because we, en masse, did the wrong things but because we did nothing at all. Call me crazy, but I'd rather we not become a footnote in the book of cosmic embarrassments...
"Here lies the birth and resting place of the smartest and most capable species to ever look up at the sky in this corner of the universe. Distracted by worthless commodities, empty rhetoric/falsehoods and an obsession with immortality, they allowed a few individuals to destroy the only home they had."
If there are other intelligences out there to see the aftermath of our continued indifference, what a sad outcome that would be: infinitely more so if we, improbable as it may be, are alone, having left a warning to no one but our “irreplaceable/extinct” selves. So we should, at the very least, work to give equal time and consideration to the needs of others (especially those we may never meet) and our environment as we do to our own immediate needs. For the sake of a future worth experiencing, our private corners of peace and prosperity cannot continue to be our only focus.
“Racism is over. The president is black!”
A quick perusal of social-media or a glance at the comments on almost any article about race, racism, the war on drugs, the criminal justice system, etc., will serve as a stark reminder to any sensible person that racism is still a thing. I embedded this clip earlier in the essay, but I think it deserves a special bit of attention, especially for those who still believe racism is a thing of the past.
"As long I'm not at the bottom" has become the logic and mantra of people who jump on the bandwagon of hate. None of us are immune to this illness, but this essay is about more than just the “bandwagon” mentality. It is about behaviors, group associations, the hatred for brown skin, systemic racism, and how nonsensical and lazy it is for Americans, especially self-identified white Americans who act as if they are just along for the ride, to say we are all equal when there is little evidence to support such a claim. Honestly, if we are all in this together and equal, should not our opportunities, sufferings, and successes be similar in scope and experience? That is not the truth of America, and history shows that it never has been.
Racism, white supremacy, and the socioeconomic disparities created because of those social constructs are not mistakes. They are not the benign artifacts of the past. They are here now and a purposeful distraction and distortion of logic for us all, especially for the Euro-American masses. This nation, born out of sickness, remains grossly afflicted with hatred. This hatred spreads by both direct action against POC and by the inaction, apathy, and the ignorance (historical & contemporary) of those with the most power to eradicate that hatred. And with these tools of hate and division, the wealthiest among us have systematically destroyed the very moorings of what could be a great nation.
The American experiment is a failure and will continue to fail until the problems of its sordid past and chaotic present are confronted and resolved. As it stands, this nation is only “great” for the extremely wealthy and those fortunate enough to somehow never experience poverty or disenfranchisement in their adult lives. Once we have resolved those problems, unified, we will be better able to shift our focus towards those who have profited greatly from our collective misery.
So here I ask that each of us pull our heads out of those fluffy and, mostly white, clouds of privilege and see the world our choices have created. Stop supporting the status quo with silence and quick indictments of the disenfranchised. Stop changing the subject. Stop complaining about our hurt feelings. Stop listening to everyone except the people who are suffering. We either challenge the system and our long held perceptions of the people it harms or do nothing, and thus, contribute to the collapse.
titsay
vaporwave
jbbartram-illu
andulkaphoto
