American Manifesto Part Four: Prejudice
A
country that does not want prejudice should not legalize prejudice
"Our
loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this
means we must develop a world perspective." Martin Luther King
This section of the blog is the shortest, because as a
nation I think it is where we have progressed the farthest; however we still
have a long journey to go. Then again, I
am a white male; how would I know? How far have we come in race relations in America? We fought our greatest war over slavery? Was the war over recognizing the basic human
dignity of each human being? Did humans
fight for an inherent truth?
How much of it was economics or state’s rights? How much of it was the preservation of
wealth? The South concentrated its
economic power in the exploitation of African slaves as free labor to fuel an
agricultural economy as new American wealth.
The North was more industrialized and modernized, and by its nature less
capable of growing such cash-crops due to weather. The North was filled with shipped-over older
European wealth, yet our founding fathers owned slaves. Did the North just want to eliminate the
South’s biggest economic engine and cement its foothold as the head of the
nation?
The inherent truth is humans should not be
slaves. People should never own
people. It is wrong. If the Civil War effectively ended slavery in
America
as an indirect rather than direct consequence of the North’s victory so be it.
People have died, families destroyed, and children’s
innocence replaced with fear because of racial hatred, ignorance and
prejudice. That fear breeds misconceptions.
The separation of conversations from face-to-face families interacting across
racial barriers has impeded our ability to see our common humanity.
People want the same things, those base needs of
health, education, food and security to be met.
Humans want to help our kids grow, learn, and develop into happy
functioning adults. Regardless of race,
gender, sexual orientation, political party, religion or North or South, our
inability in America
to be honest about this common desire is one of our greatest flaws. This insecurity will die under the foot of
Generation X from children swaddled by the adolescents of the 1960’s, who had
the benefit of every prior generation.
"Hatred
paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it." Martin Luther King
Our media exploits victimization based on race,
gender, sexual orientation or religion to perpetuate the gullibility of TV viewers. Gullible viewers vote for the candidate media
advertisements endorse. Gullible viewers
buy the products media companies advertise and boost their profits. Gullible viewers allow the media to focus on
inexpensive puff human-interest pieces rather than real news because fluff gets
higher ratings. Gullible viewers will
protest in bands of political outraged citizens over the use of one person’s
word rather than actions in the name of civil rights. Hell, there is more outrage over one
utterance of the word nigger by the collective mouthpiece that is CNN, Fox
News, CNBC, and World News Tonight, then for hundreds of African Americans
slain in our streets every year through gun violence.
How many kids have to die before it is called
genocide? In the words of Chris Rock,
“it’s not the word; it’s the context in which the word is used.” Why not let our words hold us together to
have real conversations about what we can work towards with a common focus? Let us not ignore our history and our scars,
but let us not let our scars paralyze us from concentric living.
The Civil
Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was not about political
correctness. The civil rights movement
was trying to stop human necks from being roped up in trees, blind-eye murders,
and stone-walled access not the implied sentiment of quotes taking out of
context. The civil rights movement took
a stand for our common humanity and our equal ability to succeed and fail in
life’s inherent dignified pursuits.
The movement for the man shot down at the Loraine Motel was about seeing people for who we
are, in our greatness and in our flaws.
People like Dr. King lived so that we can talk about race or our career
or any aspect of human experience in an open conversation without being fixated
on over-sensitivities perpetuated by ignorance.
We should be allowed the freedoms to succeed or fail
with the same consequence regardless of race.
Why do we preclude or exclude someone from understanding the mechanics
of our soul based on a divergent path of a family history to arrive at our
current position?
"All
men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality." Martin Luther King
We are creatures of change, whether we choose to or
not; the world around us can not be still.
Generation X knows the paradigm has shifted. The experiences of the teenagers and adults
living through 1960’s America
saw a harsh and raw transition to generate the bulb that is only now
blooming. As those individuals approach
retirement their children and grandchildren have brought some of Dr. King’s
dream into partial fruition. It is
Generation X’s duty to finish the cross-pollination in the way we live, raise
our kids, elect our leaders and vote. So
that after us, every subsequent human will reflect on such proponents of
prejudice like people who use to believe the Earth was flat as the
ignorant-flawed humans they were.
When any of us see racists acts carried out by
individuals, groups, or own government rationalized by stereotypes or profiling
to gloss over them as the status quo we need to stand, call it out and demand
consequences. The internet is often most
helpful in this respect. However, we are
often given bits of facts or reality. In
the confusion sometimes we take our outrage and make it fit to lash out like a
hand grenade or sometimes the funnel where outrage should be is muted by
ignorant assumptions.
We can not raise the dead, but we can change
perceptions. I can see why black America feels a
twisting blade in a wound, that no matter what year it is there will always be
the reconstruction of past racial atrocities in the mental perception of
killings. But we can not let either side
of that pain paint the picture of how we view entire races based upon the
actions of the ignorant.
A Short Insufficient
Historical Recap Attempt
The end of the civil war around 1865, and the 13th
and 14th amendments to the constitution ended slavery and guaranteed
blacks the ability to vote and sit on a jury, but a score of Jim Crow laws and
Black Codes ushered on a new form of racial segregation for the next one
hundred years.
In 1892, Homer Plessy led a failed political statement
to root out racial discrimination on a train car in Treme, a neighborhood in New Orleans. Treme was home to the largest population of
free blacks in the United
States prior to the ending of slavery. Treme is an historic neighborhood built from
home owners. Plessy and his lawyer
Albion Tourgee intended to point out the unconstitutionality of segregated
transportation and instead, in what I consider the worst supreme court decision
in this nation’s history legalized separate but equal for seventy years in a
devastating blow to progress.
Education, transportation, and public places were now
segmented with the blessing of the federal government. A new form of slavery was born in the name of
avoiding imputed public-discomfort from races interacting. This separate but equal brought about
disproportionate funding and the same implied-inferiority of the “colored”
system, Plessy and Tourgee were arguing to end.
We wonder why we have so much trouble in America
talking with each other as human beings first rather than rationalizing silence
because of our racial group. Only by
looking at the ugliness of the past and letting it go, can we move forward.
It was not until 1954, in Brown versus the Board of
Education that the segregation in schools legitimized through the failures of
Plessy versus Ferguson, was deemed illegal under the work of Thurgood
Marshall. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act
was finally passed.
"The
value of love will always be stronger than the value of hate. Any nation or group of nations which employs
hatred eventually is torn to pieces by hatred..."Franklin Roosevelt
Racial segregation both legalized and indoctrinated
are examples of where we have failed as a people, of where we allowed ignorance
to guide the masses to make judgments based on fear of what was different from
the proclaimed norm.
The
Evolution of Affirmative Action
To counteract that history we passed affirmative
action policies. Policies which were
meant to correct injustice and to prevent exclusion, but by their nature they
are inherently racist. Justified by a
sorry-ass history I can see how at one point in time those policies did more
good than harm. But in today’s world, I
am not certain they do, but then again I am white and I don’t know.
Being white I put my race in my back pocket like a
biometric asset pass-card to enter and go as I please. I do not think about the shade in my skin or
my diction as a consideration at border crossings. I rarely if ever feel the alternative. I admit ignorance, but at some point I hope
we can choose love-based over fear-based policies.
Advanced digital software allows racially-blind
decision making tools to be far more pragmatic in various situations where
affirmative action may have been utilized in the past. I think we are better if we focus on income
(class)-based assistance in our education and entitlement subsides where the
selection process is done blind to race, and possibly name and focus on
applicant qualifications without racial quotas, but possibly income quotas of
the individual or the parents of the individual based on the applicant’s age. Although that may just be a distant utopia
and people will always be racist idiots, but who knows with a few generations
churned? Possibly by recognizing the
struggles of class, rather than race, in a weird relation we can see
communalities independent of race born by society rather than genetics.
The underbelly of affirmative action is that it
implies a compromise of quality to rationalize its continuance or maybe it just
implies Darwinian human imperfection in those selecting. An implication that the individual chosen for
the job, the contract, or the admittance to the university due to the policy
was chosen not for their intelligence, capabilities or the content of their
character, but because of their race or gender.
That is demeaning and condescending.
Affirmative Action leaves unnecessary lingering
question marks in the minds of everyone affected about why the decision
rendered utilizing affirmative action criteria came to a just conclusion. Plessy’s case was to argue against the
implied inferiority of the colored train car versus the white train car despite
the argument of equal but separate at the time.
Affirmative action inherently possesses the same sentiment of implied
inferiority, but instead of the services provided to a people it implies it in
the people. At minimum it implies,
humans are self-interested fucks, who will prioritize the mirror of skin,
culture or gender we see in the arbitrary decisions our government permits us
to make to reaffirm our own status and Darwinian self-interest, subconsciously
or consciously.
Any implied inferiority to me is the biggest clog in
the pipes to truly acknowledging the racial progress we have made in America
and opening the flood gates to a system of true equality and to close the gap
of mental segregation we have been taught at our respective dinner tables.
The idea that there is a difference in the goals of
African, European, Latino, Middle Eastern and Asian Americans etc. in what we
each want for ourselves and our family is ridiculous. The true victory of a people is to
self-actualize into our greatest potential and be allowed to fail or thrive in
doing so.
How can we progress as a nation if we stereotype part
of America in allocating success of security and economic independence as some
how a crime and incarceration and having it painful to make ends meet each
month are treated as keeping-it-real to a racial identity? This is a dangerous psychology to combat.
The political exploitation of low income voting
blocks, the current tax system, disproportionate incarceration rates for
similar crimes (especially drug-related offenses) and federal distribution of
benefits incentivizes the poor to remain unemployed, unmarried, and with an
increased family size exacerbates the proliferation of this negative stereotype
in a disproportionate manner along racial lines. Addressing these issues for the good of all
of us will be described in part eight.
"Nothing
will work unless you do." Maya Angelou
How can we end prejudice in America if we believe that passing
prejudicial laws in this country is ok?
Will ending affirmative action end racism, no. In many ways I argue with myself that the
exact opposite is true, because the idea of love over fear may belong in fairy
tales rather than New York, Atlanta,
or Los Angeles. Racist assholes will be racist assholes. In my opinion in the long run the inferences
of inferiority cause a greater disconnect between our common humanity that is a
greater detriment to our society then the benefit of the actual instances of
unearthed opportunity to qualified applicants that the policies create if we
can not reward the growth of our collective.
Some people will hold on in fervor that racism still
exists at levels rampant enough to validate affirmative action’s continued
necessity. They would argue that these
laws and standards assist in balancing out that unfairness along with countless
unbalanced injustices throughout our country’s history. When we look at poverty, unemployment, health
care coverage and standard of living rates the mathematics do not lie. Race affects life.
Neo-slavery incarceration disproportionately affects
colored children. The color-by-number
human book of prison is bathed in a brown skin hue disproportionate to the
total population. Juvenile detention
centers play social trap games.
Every parent has hope for his child. Bloods, Crypts, Latin Kings, ghettos and
barrios: everybody’s strapped. What will
you carry? Love or fear? Decreased funding for prophylactic shots,
universal healthcare-funded voluntary vasectomies, Plan B pills and I.U.D’s;
taxpayer religious righteousness trumps finance. Penises and vagina’s of poor teenagers reach
for love in a world vomiting violence and fear.
Hypocrites spit from ivory towers on cycles of papoose poverty.
Racism exists.
It always will, but the neo-1960’s millennial teenage decade battle
crier would like to believe it is a decaying mantra of the fringes of the
fearful extremes in our country white and black. Based on the evolution of America, Generation X is the first
generation blessed with the tools to entomb rather than simply suppress such
prejudice on a macro-level. But we still
need to combat poverty like the mutual burden it is red-state Nebraska
and blue state California. The path away from racial prejudice and
affirmative action policies runs through properly addressing the challenges of
class, number one of which is poverty.
We must reframe the argument.
I believe the man who says it will never be fair has
to let go of the fear he holds in his clenched hand and open it up to hold the
hand of his neighbor who is just like him to allow this country to transcend
its past failures. Trust and love are
fragile assets. Generation X is opening
our hands with the aid of the obliteration of ignorance the civil rights
movement provided to our parents.
If we can continue to reform our public schooling and
health care delivery systems to encourage level playing fields, natural racial
assimilation in the human pipelines will diminish ignorance produced from
racial segregation perpetuated through class.
Maybe affirmative action helps get us there better. I am not sure. The pandemic of poverty transcends race, yet
we ineffectively fight with blame over empathy.
Eventually we need to open our voice that we are ready
to let go of our fear and replace it with a common faith. We need to fulfill Dr. King’s dream and the
people who fought for it should have enough faith to open up the possibility of
it being achieved in their own lifetimes.
"Whenever
you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love." Mohandas Gandhi
Homosexual
Prejudices
The other major bastion of prejudice in America
is against homosexuals. The hypocrisy of
those who use God’s name to trivialize the connection between two people of the
same gender who live committed and loving lives with one another as merely an
issue about sex is overwhelmingly ignorant.
To claim an act of sex between two consenting adults is a sin in a given
religion to justify a public law outlawing such practices or the marriage of those
individuals on “religious” grounds oversteps our constitutional rights for a
separation of church and state. No
matter how wide spread Christianity, Islam, or any religion may be in America;
such judgmental discretions are a matter of personal preference not personal
“religious” legislation. This is an
equal rights issue.
Homosexual rights have nothing to do with sex and
everything to do with the recognition of equalities that the 14th
Amendment purports to provide under the law.
The most glaring question I have for people who are so adamant in
opposition to the issues of legal gay marriage or civil unions and divorces and
the provision of all the legal and tax benefits and consequences under the law
is, “Who does it hurt to deny this except for the only people seeking to engage
and participate in the activities which the State is making illegal?” There is no negative externality to allowing
such freedoms what so ever, but there are real world consequences that breed a
culture of ignorance and intolerance.
Some people might concoct to the degradation of
traditional heterosexual marriage, which is the same sort of logic that
generated fear in Plessy versus Ferguson. Some people fear the delusion that if
straight people interact with gay people that will indicate that straight
people were some how less-heterosexual or that children being exposed to the
idea that gay marriage exists will encourage homosexuality.
Some people equate this as against a religious law and
equate homosexuality with sins with killing or lying. Some people dole out some sort of connection
between pedophilia and homosexuality, as if the monsters who commit such crimes
are not more often heterosexual. Similar
logic led to the separate but equal laws on the train cars and the school rooms
of the early 1900’s; that were rationalized because some how everyone was just
more comfortable with a segregated society.
Homosexuals are human beings. The
concept of segregating adults because of who they love is cruel and unusual
punishment rationalized by our inability to be honest about humanity.
Zealots preaching from the Bible may argue clauses
that God said marriage was the sacrament joining a man and woman for life. They may espouse that homosexual marriage is
an abomination against what God says because it was printed in the Bible. Fundamentalists may bring up polygamy,
bestiality, or the marriage between an adult and a child to vomit frantic
unrelated fear-based arguments to oppose gay marriage under a mandate for
required definitions and rules.
People can argue all day about the intent, author, or
relevance of religious texts or if it should have any relevance to our secular
constitution. But one of if not the
most highly held Christian beliefs in the Bible also says that Jesus said, “the
greatest commandment above all is to love your neighbor as yourself,” and what
greater lesson is there for a Christian to allow two people to share their love
and commitment in a dignified manner that perpetuates that greatest commandment
rather than violate some clause from the Old Testament written by some man who
had no concept of the tax or legal ramifications of marriage leading to a woman
being banned from sitting aside the hospital bed of her partner.
Penises in assholes, cunnilingus; get over it. Adults
have sex. Conservative puritans aghast
at sodomy, jerking off to the U.S.
bombing Baghdad;
gay couples don’t make welfare babies and don’t have abortions, but do pay
taxes.
No one in America today would seek to deny a
Muslim or a Catholic from getting civilly married or a white woman and an Asian
man. No one should deny that freedom to
two women or two men. It is selfishly
laden with bigotry to deny this personal freedom, even more so in a secular
country and at its root unconstitutional.
The reality is there have been closeted and now openly
out homosexuals walking the floors of congress.
The discrimination and bigotry carried out as legislation to deny
homosexuals the spirit of the 14th amendment to the United States
Constitution has been perpetuated by both sides of the aisle and in some cases
most adamantly by some of those suspected to being closeted gays living a
lie. What kind of self-hatred and fear
must our society impart to a human being to carry out such a duplicitous
lifestyle? People have a right to fuck
who they want, just don’t fuck the American people.
America needs to be honest with her self. Coming out is no different. In the same sentiments of Harvey Milk, if
every homosexual in the world came out openly to everyone he or she knew, how
many people would have a face for homosexuality to relate to a human reality,
and would desist perpetuating the bigotry of ignorance that allows the
political room for such discriminations against homosexuals to exist in this
country?
Pass a federal law legalizing every adult’s right to
marry any other adult over the legal age of marital consent, given the other
party’s consent and the consent of any adult currently married to either party
which conveys all the legal rights and privileges of marriage. The only role the government has in marriage
is in the legal rights marriage conveys and ensuring a level playing
field. This is an equal rights issue.
Progress
Progress comes in leaps of faith in our own humanity
to accept our inherent truths and to parcel out and extinguish the calamities
created through the history of our collective mistakes. What kind of life do we want to lead and
leave for our children? We can hold on
to fear. We can gloss over the realities
of injustices still existing in our country, but our greatest weapon to combat
ignorance is truth.
The truth is no law that utilizes race or sexual
orientation as a line of demarcation will legislate one America with justice for all. Justice can only come from communication,
friendships and sharing our lives. We
have honesty in our common humanity, yearning to love other humans, to raise
our families in peaceful homes, and to break bread to eat the same foods, to
drink the same water, and to say today or maybe one day we live in the same America.
People get incomplete answers by judging humans on our
appearance rather than our actions.
People could look at me and my best friend and call us natural enemies,
but in the words of my favorite punk band Rancid, “He’s a different color, but
we’re the same kid, I treat him like my brother and he’ll treat me like
his.” People could look at my religion
and call me a bigot against homosexuals, but having religious faith, does not
mean you follow blindly or are ignorant to scientific facts, or let the extreme
views of pieces of a religion cannibalize the heart of what you believe.
Love is always stronger than hate, so is common
sense. People could look at my friends
from a punk show and call them hooligans when punk is some of the most
inclusive unity music in the world. Each
book has thousands of words, but only one cover, all you have to do is display
the discipline to read the pages.
People in America have made this unfortunate
voluntary segregation, which has diminished our children’s ability to interact
and uncover our communalities. The first
step is to open our own minds and re-define our preconceptions and methods of
judgment, to allow for systematic change.
"Children
are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk." Carl Jung
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