>>>>>>
Posted: 11.4.2011
The ‘R’ word is Racism! Yes, even though we have a Black President Obama right now we still have deeply entrenched racism in the Amerikan psyche. Other countries have other social issues to deal with, such as, deep divisions involving tribalism and regionalism. Racism is one of the main reasons why there is no strong united progressive movement inside the United States, especially White racism.
We who consider ourselves progressive thinkers and involved activists need to do our own self-criticism about our own failure to unite together as one humane family for our common good, regardless of any personal orientation. We must still dig down and root out all forms of unnatural negativism in our own collective psyche: nationalism, racism, sexism, tribalism and other –isms.
I often spell America as Amerikan with a ‘k’ so we do not forget that this is the land where the KKK has its origins. If my spelling of America as Amerika with ‘k’ bugs you or, God forbid, seems unpatriotic, maybe you should stop and reflect why that is. Are there skeletons in your back closet?
For us to be naïve and consider the racial factor as no longer an ’issue in question’ is to be blind to a key part of what needs to be transformed in our collective psyche. Imagine if Black and Brown people were united along with all progressive White people? The whole general situation could change dramatically overnight inside the United States. Even the so-called United States are not really United but more a Divided States colored as red and blue states, another fascist divisor. Amerika has some big huge problems facing it that must be recognized, faced head-on without fear and resolved.
As a Chicano de Aztlan I do not even consider myself as an Amerikan anymore. White Amerikan society has never considered those of my own people of La Raza (Chicanos-Mexicans-Latinos etc.) as legitimate full-fledged members of Amerikan society. Many so-called Amerikans are still hard core racists to the bone, including many of my own people against Black people! In a Mexican family the light-skinned offspring is usually given favored treatment, even bragged about and called ‘wedo’ or ‘white one’. Many Chicanos and Mexicans among themselves refer to a Black man as a ‘mayate’, a black beetle found in cotton fields. However, why is it that Chicanos are not generally racist against White people, especially White women!
Many Black and Brown people are racists and see each other as competition for jobs, for attention, for social opportunities and surely for women among the men. Black and Brown people should be natural allies in our collective fight for freedom and social justice, not competitors.
There are a lot of complicated social dynamics involving the historical plague of racism. People do not like to even talk or think about the sin of racism or they pretend that it does not even exist anymore. Alas, racism is alive and well inside the United States. Now it is more hidden, subtle and subconscious than earlier times. We are not all well and wonderful. Actually racism is a psycho-social disease, a kind of mental disorder. What other disorder has resulted in having hatred for an entire people, for murderous lynchings in dark woods in the outskirts of town because of skin color?
Many people are still racist in varying degrees. If you were raised in a racist society it can seem natural to be racist, but racism is the result of environmental social conditioning and culture patterns of behavior. No one is born a racist; you have to be carefully taught. Racism is not natural. Often rabid racism hiding deep within the psyche is not even recognized on a clear conscious level of understanding. You automatically walk across the street or avoid sitting by one of ‘them’ without clear conscious awareness. For many it is a natural as breathing to be racist.
For non-White people this is a nightmarish situation. Non-White people were never calculated into the whole ideal of the Amerikan dream. We have never lived in any kind of dreamland. In fact, the American dream has become the Amerikan nightmare and we all need to wake up out of it!
We should not throw a blanket on White people as racists. Being racist is a psycho-social disease that has infected and affected all of us over the past few centuries. White people do not have a monopoly on racism. Racism is another example of the old divide-and-conquer Roman Formula. Racism keeps the people divided against each based upon a strictly racial basis. Racism helped in the original conquest of the early Amerikan conquerors. Amerika was founded upon the mass genocide of the original indigenous population known widely as Indian or Native-Americans. Indians are actually from the land of India. How many so-called Native-Americans are actually looked at and treated as ordinary Americans?
The concept of race as we understand it is actually a social invention and conscious construction first widely utilized by the Spaniards upon indigenous peoples to justify their conquest in the Americas as they were not to be considered as real humans, but a subhuman species without the rights afforded to real human beings. All human beings are actually composed of one race of homo-sapiens. In connected reality, we are one people upon one Mother Earth.
Towards a Solution
Surely, we all need inner healing, long-term psycho-analysis or at least we need to take time for deep serious self-reflection about these ‘issues in question’ now that we are in this new Millennium. We will not be rid of the plague of social racism in this country’s psyche under the present racist social structure with institutionalized racism build-into its whole superstructure and infrastructure.
We will have to settle for gradually getting rid of racism and other social plagues in the context of waging a conscious collective class struggle for a better world free of the defects we have inherited from this one. There is no magic wand or magic pill we can use here. We will have to sweat together, eat together and make love together as humane beings first and foremost!
We will have to change ourselves deep within the psyche of our inner soul, change our ways of thinking about each other, change our old behavior patterns into new ways of relating to each other and work together with a humane consciousness to change the world we live in for the benefit of all of us. We need to develop a new humane culture that encompasses all of us as loving humane beings who have care, concern and compassion for all living beings.
c/s
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Humane-Liberation-Party Blog
http://help-matrix.blogspot.com/
Humane-Liberation-Party Portal
http://help-matrix.ning.com/
@Peta_de_Aztlan Blog
http://peta-de-aztlan.blogspot.com/
On Twitter @Peta_de_Aztlan
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please keep comments humane!