A Minority View of Minorities

If it's always the fault of others, I guess we don't have to look for answers inside.

By this I mean, (1) assuming responsibility for finding whatever meaning one's existence has and (2) working towards a personal goal beyond blaming others.

In this particular case, I am thinking of the inconvenient truth that racism in the United States, or for that matter in France or elsewhere, may not be the one handy-all explanation and cause of the misfortunes of certain racial, ethnic, or religious groups.

For example, Charles Mudede, a writer at The Stranger, and President Obama* "know" with certainty what really happened to the Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates when he was arrested attempting to break into his own house (he had accidentally locked himself out).   [Note:   I intentionally use the words "happen to," as that was in all likelihood the state of mind that Gates was in that and every evening of his life].

Consider if you were a policeman in one of the two most liberal cities in the country, Boston/Cambridge, and witnessed a man breaking into a house, a man who happened to be black but more than that.  If my intuition is correct on two accounts, then what happened was that when confronted by the policeman, Henry Louis Gates not only became indignant, he flew into a fury and was belligerent as only a minority that has been taught over half a century that they are eternal victims of a conspiracy to keep them in chains, literally or figuratively.

Of course, the press in this case immediately had a great story whose headlines could be splashed on the front pages of every newspaper in the country:   (Even) A black Harvard professor is arrested just for entering his own house! 

 Ergo, clearly, (White) Racism (against black people) is rampant.

I myself, a non-white person, have been on more than one occasion the object of the fury of a black person who was either in a very bad mood and/or believed that I  was worthy of denigration (as a bad, stupid, worthless person).

If my hunch is correct, the police officer was sincerely attempting to prevent what he thought was a burglary in the happening but that Gates--who I will not state is a bit supercilious--bludgeoned him verbally and emotionally in much the way that I have been in the past (for example:  my moving a package left on a bench at the YMCA that an elderly African-American was sitting on, so that I could sit there, too; the man apparently thought I would actually sit on his belonging, and "really let me have it").

Most sensible people-- whatever their race, ethnicity, social/economic status simply--do not become aggressive with a police officer.

Who in the earth would believe, much less actually say, that African-Americans can be "disorderly" or "difficult" (behave in a belligerent/arrogant towards others)?

The irony is that the scholarship in American history Henry Louis Gates III has been engaged in over the past 30 years has only made him increasingly rigid, bellicose--entrenched in his views--and just barely tolerably supercilious.

When we need new approaches to race problems in this country, it is of little comfort to know that those in power still stubbornly cling to the past and to a vision of the world that does not reflect present realities.

The devil is inside

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_controversy



* who, as you recall, threw his own reverend of 20+ years "under the bus" when it was inconvenient to have association with him.





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Yes, if you believe that things keep "happening to you" and that you are powerless (as in, against a wicked world intentionally oppressing you and making you miserable), you will feel very frustrated, angry, and resentful.  And explode, flying off the handle at the very least "provocation."

In this case, the maxim that "one sees the world not as it actually is, but as one is" is applicable.  The external world is a reflection of your own mind.

You see the ghost of racism everywhere, and you react.




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I think that Nelson Mandela understood that the endless spiral of violence and hatred in society is kept intact by blame ("finger-pointing") and the repetitive desire for and re-enactment of vengeance, over and over again, for wrongs real, historic, or imagined.


What if No One's Doing It to Us, except Ourselves?