You And Race In America Look At A Subject and Situation You Want To Look Away From

[whiskers_w 0]

What do we know about ourselves, when it comes to race in America?

 

We have never really had an open and constructive discussion of race in America. I say this because we leave out the majority of Americans whenever we have this discussion in any form. This in itself is a racist act, and each and every one of us who resides within the confines of the United States is in some way guilty. We define ourselves as "Americans". We claim a continent as our national identity, even though we make up a minority of Americans, when the truth is told. This is because Mexicans, Bolivians, Argentinians, Jamaicans, Hondurans, Canadians, and everyone else from the land mass and islands between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are ALL Americans. There are more than a billion and a half Americans, the principal language spoken in America is Spanish, and the overwhelming racial characteristic is Native American (Indian, as we originally referred to them).

 

THEY are less important than WE are

 

There is no legitimate argument against this. It is what it is. But for most of us, this is a subject that we either ignore, or were never taught to consider. Calling ourselves Americans to the exclusion of the people of the rest of the Americas would be like Germans referring to themselves as Europeans, to the exclusion of the British, French, Italians, Swedes, and the rest of the people of the continent. No German would dare do that, out of respect for the rest of Europe. Yet we, USAers do it with impunity and total disrespect for the rest of the people on the continent(s) of America. There is only one continent that is itself a country, and it is so racist and wrongly named that I will not mention it here. The point is that racism starts with lies, disrespect and disregard for other people. It says the other people, whomever they are, are less than I am or WE are.

 

The next thing is that WE insist upon defining everyone else. THEY can have no self-identity. Any attempt by a people to identify themselves outside or in contradiction to OUR definition of them is seen as hostile to our "interests". Next, THEY have no right to own, possess, or extract wealth from their own God-given lands. America is the best example of this. Take your pick as to "which" part of America you choose to examine. In every case, the land was taken from the original owners by naked aggression, and spread amongst the "conquerers" as a spoil of victory. Again, it is what it is.

 

We worked for what we have

 

Next, is the idea that we, as neither the actual conquerors, nor takers, nor enslavers (in the case of slavery, which we will deal with later) owe no apology, as the descendants of the conquerors to the descendants of the the conquered. Whatever that injustice was back then, it's not an issue now, we reason. That was then, and this is now. I worked for what I have. We worked for what we have. We lie to ourselves and the world, because everyone knows, whether they admit it or not, that more was taken... more was given, than could possibly have been worked for.

 

It was O.J... Everybody knows that

 

At the same time we claim to be a nation of laws, with liberty and justice for all. All? My grandma used to say if you tell a lie long enough, you will start to believe it youself. Liberty and justice for all is one of the biggest lies ever told. It ranks up there with money doesn't grow on trees. It's something we are conditioned to say without ever questioning it or holding it up to the light of truth. We SAY it but we don't LIVE it. We impose it when it suits us and totally ignore it when it doesn't. Tell the truth: If O.J. Simpson was white, and the gloves were obviously 3 sizes too small, the trial would have had trouble lasting 15 seconds after that fact was revealed. Today, we are right despite the obvious, because there is more to the story than we care to admit, so we spin the story away from the truth. We love to be lied to because it keeps us in power. The murderer wore the gloves. It was O.J. Everybody knows that! End of story.

 

NO apologies

 

The Jena 6 is yet another story where lies work for US and against THEM. Never mind the hate crime, the inciteful act of stringing a noose from a shade tree in Louisiana. That isn't important. It was just a prank. Never mind that coming to school with a gun is a federal offense. Never mind that threatening to use a gun against a human being is a crime in every jurisdiction in the U.S. Never mind that taking a gun away from a person who threatens you with it, either verbally or by his actions, is an act of self-defense. Especially when the threatener is a person of color. But, conveniently, we spin the subject away from those felonious acts, onto the beating that followed. Getting your butt whipped instead of killed for threatening a person with a gun is what we all know is: getting off lighty. Whether WE admit it or not. But, WE don't have to admit or apologize for anything. We're (rhymes with right)!

 

We decide...

 

What do we know about ourselves when it comes to race in America? We know a lot more than we're willing to discuss. That's for sure. We know that when we get right down to it, we throw "liberty and justice for all" out the window, and stand on what got us here in the first place: WE take what we want from whomever WE choose to. WE decide how much to slant the playing field in our favor then call it level. WE decide who "all" we include in the word "all", because WE can do it like that. After all, might makes right!

When the lies, disregard, and disrespect end, racism will die. Until then, it is what it is.