In a recent YouTube video the commentator was commenting on
the second amendment and how it protects white people from the violence which
may be inflicted upon them. That this how a sense of control is maintained. I
suppose if you had a dark history, one predicated on the enslavement of the African,
the genocide of indigenous people, the Chinese exclusion act of 1882, Jim Crow, and myriad of other injustices, just to name few,
I imagine you would need to protect yourself from the descendants of people murdered,
hung from a tree, discriminated against and marginalized for your sake. The NFL
debacle is one more instance of profound injustice as the voice of the players has been marginalized for the sake of so called patriotism at the insistence of
the president and profit margins.
My spiritual mother showed me pictures from a flea market
in Amarillo, TX, where crosses, made out of guns and bullets, formerly, a symbol of the crucifixion
of Jesus Christ, the foundation of the Christian faith are used as props for
the second amendment. Some things should
be out of bounds. Then there is The
World Peace and Unification Sanctuary in Newfoundland, PA, a congregation which
seemingly loves the second amendment so much that some were remarried to their
spouses while honoring their AR-15 gun. This is a seriously ludicrous church
event. They say that God gave them their guns.
“The AR-15 is their golden calf” as commented by Cenk Uygur, host of The
Young Turks. The majority of the congregation had AR-15’s supposedly unloaded. Some serious idolatry going on in this church. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VdqrLEi-yY
Guns, an icon of strength, protection and power, for people
in fear of black and brown bodies, is one icon among many whose purpose it is
to enforce a narrative of white entitlement.
One more icon was the Roseanne Bar sitcom which was cancelled due to the
star of the sitcom putting out an abhorrent racist tweet on twitter calling
Valerie Jarrett, one of President Obama’s key advisors, an ape. Of course this wasn’t
the first time she had done this. She
had also called Susan Rice, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations who
became President Barack Obama's national security advisor in 2013, a man, using
vulgar and extreme derogatory language. She had sung the National Anthem at a baseball game in such a way that it was disrespectful to all Americans while a black man cannot kneel in respect of the flag remembering the injustice that flag also represents. That said, many people are asking the
question, “Why did ABC let her do the show in the first place? We can never discount the profit motive when
addressing huge corporations such as Disney.
I think, and this is just my thought based on the various media both
left and right, it is because of her controversial stance on race, as a
fundamental discourse in the Make America Great Again movement, in particular, which
got people, particularly the Trump supporter, to look at the show making it the
top show on ABC. I think for ABC there was a line drawn in the sand and she
crossed that line and lost her show. The question that has come up is, “How strong
will the backlash be?” or “Will the show get picked up by another network?”
What we have are a people frightened of the history they’ve
chosen to create. It is a cautionary tale that one must be aware of the long
term implications of one’s actions at the moment of decision. This would seem
to be the case of those who have built up whiteness, giving it a luster, even a
shine rooted in the oppression of those black and brown. Of course those who
lift up whiteness are the latest in a long procession of the those who oppress
for sake of social and cultural sensibilities, profit and privilege. That said,
those who hold on to their second amendment and a strange unjust faith, are a
detriment to a nation divided as they fuse their fear with notions of white
nationalism.
While I am very much aware that many people
don’t like putting injustice in racial terms because it makes matters worst or
it puts up a block, etc. we must acknowledge that racism as a fundamental part of
the problem. I get it, we want to
communicate but without actually sharing the hard truth of the matter we do a
disservice to a movement of justice for all. People say, put it in terms of
class, education or anything else but not race. It’s hard for me not to
consider race as a fundamental concern as it is the initial building block of American
injustice. Police brutality, red lining, school to prison pipeline, don’t begin
with a person’s class, education or politics but their race. Yes the issues are
larger than race but we should not push race aside saying, “It’s not pertinent to
ongoing issues of social and economic justice.
We must say no to racism in all its forms and
iterations. To do anything less is a
condoning of injustice. We must stand strong and unwavering in the face of a
resurgence of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia
and other forms of hatred and bigotry. I think the actions of corporate America
like Starbucks and ABC whose parent is the Disney Co., might be some examples
of standing and fighting against racism. We cannot compromise on our stance against the ugly
underbelly of America. Even if it means a so-called double standard which they
base on their belief that they are not heard or don’t have sufficient voice in
the public square. Fact is, they have a significant media complex which makes
the voice heard. Fox, Talk radio, the President of the United States, both
houses of congress. Yet they say their
voice is not heard. Give me a break from this nonsense. One more fact is,
the victims of right wing populism and its rhetoric, after centuries of
injustice are finally gaining some voice which begins to compete with those who
have historically been the perpetrators of that injustice. Times have changed and we will not go back.
WE WILL NOT GO BACK!!
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