Let’s Develop A Vaccine Against Racism
– By Ed Kociela –
We saw it last year when we had yet another summer of discontent that resulted in multiple deaths that led to anger in our hearts and motivated us to take to the streets.
We are already revisiting it again this year.
And, I would be willing to bet, for many more years into the future.
It’s the scourge of racism, which has plagued the United States since its birth.
This time, eight women were gunned down in Atlanta, six of them of Asian descent.
This comes at a time when, again, we are turning our rabid attention to the border, where people of color – mostly from Central America – are being scooped up and taken into custody. Some of the red tape strung by the previous administration that blocked their hopes for asylum was cut by the Biden administration, but the situation is still tenuous for those looking to improve or simply save their lives.
And, it comes as new wave Republicans are trying their very best to shut down voter rights in the good ol’ boy neighborhood of the South where the possum-eaters hold a grudge because the African-American vote that helped carry Joe Biden into the White House.
It’s easy, you know, to discriminate against people, whether because of the color of their skin, their religion, or their political persuasion. And, we the people have done a damned good job of it, too.
From stealing the land from the indigenous people of North America to kidnapping slaves forced to work our fields to the pejorative renaming of COVID-19 to “The China Virus,” the collective “we” continues to pursue this ethnic elitism that is totally unwarranted and would be totally unbelievable if we hadn’t experienced it from Day One of the United States because, despite the romance and reverence connected to the founding fathers, it is, really, nothing more than a pile of rubbish. That liberty and freedom business mentioned in the Constitution was only applied to men of a certain color and certain means. In fact, it wasn’t until after the Civil War when the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were added that the mere thought of Constitutional protections for African-Americans was offered and even then, although the words looked good on paper, they rang hollow in practice. They did, after all, still, sing “Dixie” in the Old South.
Despite those three Amendments and the 17 Congressional Acts enacted to ensure civil rights, Jim Crow laws were passed by states clinging to the traditional prejudice of the Old South because it is always easier to hate than to embrace.
And, hate is something we, as a nation, do well, whether it is Native Americans, people of color, Middle Easterners, Asians, or anybody else who doesn’t resemble a bologna sandwich with mayo on white bread. You know, the kind of folks who stormed the Capitol on January 6 in an attempt to overturn the results of a legally sound election.
It would be easy to lay this all at the feet of the former president because of the way he made it acceptable to express your racism in polite company. But, all he did was give permission to something that was already deeply ingrained in the American culture. His nod and a wink gave impetus to the white nationalists and conspiracy buff wingnuts to try to rend the Constitution.
It didn’t work on January 6, but I have a sick feeling we will have to deal with this again. Remember, the United States is a country that likes to hold a grudge and a history of killing leaders who dare to seek equality.
It goes without saying that racism is not a problem unique to the United States. The Old West mentality, however, and easy access to guns makes it one of the most dangerous in the world, as proven again in Atlanta.
Too often we level misplaced blame on parents for the failures of their children. Perhaps the kids are not brilliant scholars or stellar athletes, or whatever other arbitrary yardstick you use to measure them and their success or failure. Racism? That’s an entirely different thing. Our children are, more than likely, going to emulate our behavior, particularly in the way we interact with each other, which is why such things as spousal abuse, addiction, and, yes, racism, are learned traits. It’s environmental, not organic, behavior handed down from one generation to the next. If you call it the China Virus, your kids probably will, too. If you drop a racial epithet while speaking of a person of color, your kids probably will, too. If you rant against BLM that all lives matter, they will not realize that all lives cannot matter until black lives matter.
We are a year deep into this COVID-19 thing and, I fear, we have learned nothing.
We haven’t looked inward to turn this planet around and focus it on peace, love, and harmony. We remain steadfast in separating ourselves, foolishly believing that will heal us when, in fact, this is a global situation that requires all of us, regardless of color, creed, or gender, to pull it together. It’s brother and sister time on the planet and we will not make it if they do not, it is as simple as that.
One of the criticisms leveled at Joe Biden is that he is too squishy, too soft. While there are certainly things I can criticize him for, his compassion, his empathy, his humanity are not among them. In fact, it is why I am happy he is our president as opposed to another four years of elitist exclusion and overt racism. I’ll take a soft, squishy guy who embraces the world rather than a racist, xenophobic, misogynistic thug.
The priority at the moment is to continue to put shots in arms and put an end to the COVID-19 pandemic.
When we finally accomplish that and set sail to normal, how about putting our heads together to develop a vaccine against racism?
It would do a world of good.
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this is one of the dumbest articles ever… liberalism truly is a mental disorder, can we rather develop a vaccine against that?
its all about feelings and someone said something nasty to me, so my feelings are hurt.. how weak and pathetic.
why don’t “people of color” as you put it, make their own nations great?
by the way, white is a color
black by definition, is the absence of color.
but liberals never care, they repeat their rhetoric over and over “white bad, color good”
white people have done a X-multiple more to help other races than vice versa; the first slave traders in Africa were black, and the vast majority of murders and rapes are done by black males.
but you refuse to consider any of this in this stupid article, its all “white man bad, republicans bad”
the N word, the A word,the K word, its all so fucking stupid… we’ve become do pathetic that if you hurt my feelings , its something to talk about.
now, this being said, I am against all forms of DISCRIMINATION, what someone DOES to you, but what someone says,? who cares.
now, whats next, we pick up 800 million people in Africa and dumb them in your home town? America cannot absorb the world. America is the prettiest girl in the room and the world is jealous of her.
it is also way way waaay more cost effective to help people, where they are. we could help way more kids in Syria, in Syria, but you believe in the retarded idea of multi-culturalism.
so let me quote a great man, a man of clear thinking, Muhammad Ali
“and another thing, when you say “integration” it comes on the end of marriage too, right? All being together (right, sure). And I’m sure no intelligent white person watching this show, or no intelligent, uh, white man in his or her right white mind want black boys and black girls marrying their white sons and daughters and, in return, introducing their grandchildren as half-brown, kinky-haired black people (I would–I would–I would…), and I’m sure (…object to that). Well you wouldn’t but a lot of them would (well I’m sure a lot of people–no, it–it’s ). What I’m trying to say is this, what I’m tryin’a say is this: you don’t have it, you say you don’t have it, you really ain’t gon’ have it, you on the show and you got’a say that (crowd erupts into laughter, some applaud). (No that–that’s not true) Why would you want’a do that? (Because-because I don’t see–I don’t think I’m any different from you, you see?) Yeah well we much different (I meant, I think society’s made us different), you know we’re different (society’s made us different), no, not society, God made us different! (No, no, we’re just human beings, He made all of us) We all–listen, blue birds fly with blue birds, red birds only want’a be with red birds (crowd begins laughing), listen, listen, tell me when I’m wrong, pigeons want’a be wit’ pigeons, tell me when I’m… (but we have intelligence, we have a thing they don’t have) Right, they don’t have intelligence but yet they stay together, we should have more intelligence then them, right? (crowd laughs) I don’t see–I don’t see no black and white couples in England or America walkin’ around proud, holdin’ their children (that’s because society…) and goin’ out (that–that’s society’s fault, I mean we got’a educate people around here), well, well, well life is too short for me to be catchin’ hell for somethin’ like that. I’d rather go on and be with my own, have a beautiful daughter, beautiful wife, they look like me, we all happy, and I don’t have no trouble (crowd erupts in laughter), no trouble–I ain’t that much in love with no woman to go through all that hell, ain’t no one woman that good (crowd laughs), you understand? (I understand, yeah, I just–I do understand, I understand, I think–I think it’s sad that, that, that…) it ain’t sad ’cause I want my child to look like me. Every intelligent person wants his child to look like him. I’m sad because I want to blot-out my race and lose my beautiful identity? Chinese love Chinese, they love the little slanted-eye, crooked, brown-skinned chil–babies, Pakistani’s love their culture, Jewish people love their culture, lot’a Catholics don’t want’a marry nothin’ but Catholics, they want their religion to b–stay the same. Who want’a spot-up yourself and kill your race? You a hater of your people if you don’t want’a stay who you are. You ashamed of what God made you? God didn’t make no mistake when he made us all like we were. (I think that’s a philosophy of despair) Despair? (I really do, yeah), it ain’t no despair, number one, can’t no woman (crowd applauds for Ali), let me tell ya somethin’, I’m’a tell ya, listen, no woman on this whole Earth, not even a black woman in Milesome(?) countries can please me, and cook for me, and socialize, and talk to me like my American black woman; no woman, at last is a white woman, can really identify with me and my feelin’s, and the way I act and the way I talk. And you can’t take no Chinese man and give him a Puerto Rican woman, and hollerin’ ’bout “we in love”, and you emotionally in love, and physically, but really their not happy ’cause she’s gonna listen to Puerto Rican music, he’s gonna listen to Chinese music (crowd laughs) and they gon’ be clashin’ all the time; it’s just nature, you can do what you want, but it’s nature to want to be wit’ your own. I want’a be with my own. I love my people, that’s all…” – ALI
(i.e. Ali said racial integration and multi culturism is STUPID)