The differences between us shouldn't be ignored.
Our different ethnicities and cultures are responsible for each person's unique personality.
These differences should be celebrated.
You should not run from them by trying to 'homogenize' everyone by 'not saying black' or 'not saying white', etcetera
The thing we need to do is get rid of the social and institutional stigmas and prejudicial behaviors and actions that 'apply themselves' historically and seemingly with an unwavering, shrewd sentience, . . . dictated by the ethnicity and culture one hails from or can be identified with via The Basic Senses.
That task is more difficult because it's now autonomous, subliminal, and insidiously present in many aspects of our society and culture.
Like the aforementioned this insinuates itself within the different aspects of of our society both altering them and being fed by them at the same time. This 'symbiosis of bias' if you will was actually inseminated into the 'body of society' by design to preserve and propagate the economic system or 'sickness', if you will, called Racism. Racism was and continues to be one of the major overarching, seemingly constantly present afflictions within the 'operating systems' of this society, and many others the world over. This Pathogen and the 'infected entities' have grown now built-in defense systems to thwart the very same thing we need to do:
Quarantine The Virus
Here's one glaring example:
There is a social and political fight on-going to redefine what being American is.
The long-standing, subconscious impression is one of pure white supremacy, if you think about it, which excludes all other non-whites from even being deserving of the single word identity:
American.
Toni Morrison said as much in her famous quote about 'everyone else needing to hyphenate'.
That statement is a testament to the fact that for a centuries or more being American meant Caucasian.
And not just the skin color:
It meant blonde hair, blue/green eyes, a certain body shape and facial features. It meant a particular set of 'accepted' 'accents'.(It's why Italians, Irish, etc in addition to the still-impugned Blacks, had their rough patches early on as well)
All of the above features curiously were prescribed the 'Sea Level' of the American Identity.
It's why I've heard whites tell me, for example, that they don't have an accent.
Sounds silly on its face because . . .
We all do . . . but due to this imbued, subliminal designation of the 'American Identity Prototype' if you will, that is part and parcel of white privilege, there is this assumption that everyone else is required to try to ascribe to that standard.
If you look at the people in the individual encounters I've had, almost all do not mean this maliciously in the least, and most are frankly oblivious to the larger message being spun, the long-running, agenda of bias being wrought with almost immortal resiliency by their 'innocent assertions'.
Let's think of it as an infected LAN Network with internet . . .
These oblivious 'users' that work on their 'infected pc's' are unaware that the message they send out into the 'network' of the human interactive experience contains a potent Trojan or virus
The virus is one that affects only certain other 'network' users that don't share the' accepted hardware signature'; when you go to the basic level of the operating system of these (DOS so to speak), you see this hidden 'code' that says:
"You don't quite 'belong'. We are entitled to all the promises of this country by default because we fit the accepted 'definition' as the 'true citizens' of this nation."
If that is the message hidden in the 'code' that we non-whites have learned to unravel . . . then where does that leave us? Where do we fit?
That message has been copying itself on various 'Other' users of this 'network' for centuries.
It's the attempt at 'anti-viral' measures that has given rise to people like:
Garvey - advocated for a complete extraction of all 'His' systems from this network and the reconnection into a self-constructed New Network.
Malcolm X - advocated for an aggressive sort of heuristic anti-viral AI to be installed on all His systems so they stop getting 'denial of service' errors at various times and at certain levels of operation within the Network.
MLK - advocated for the self-described owners of the network to remove this virus willingly. He tried to make them see that if the virus causes sub-par functionality in His systems, then the entire integrity of their network is in peril, as His systems are and have been integral parts of the network.
. . . so to speak.
There are other such efforts at anti-virals throughout history and are even being 'written' now.
Society's Infected Network, like I've said has proven extraordinarily resilient and it's defenses are formidable . . . but it isn't invincible.
And we need to continue 'hacking away', scanning, identifying and destroying the systematic contagion.
Some fear that the total eradication of what they feel is a symbiotic 'organism' within network could herald the destruction of it totally.
It's why there has been so much 'resistance' to such efforts
Others believe that some functions and products the system used to perform and produce will cease . . . and the system will simply be upgraded and continue to function.
The loss of these actions and 'goods' will not be missed.
I'm with the later.
That fight for what is an American is well underway and we all have a vested interest in making that definition more realistic with who lives here, who has been indispensable in terms of ground breaking contributions to the lore of this country.
To understand why this upheaval is taking place and needs to take place, you also need to ask yourself WHO or specifically what 'ethnicity' had such absolute 'confidence' or thought they had such an unassailable position of 'master editor', that they felt they could dictate what the 'rightful' inhabitants of their country would be like.
You know the answer.
Ask yourself who has benefited from the inherent 'exclusion' in this sweeping, hubris-filled 'declaration/decree'.
You know the answer.
One must also note that this 'insistent', sometimes forceful imposition, necessitated a simultaneous, strenuous and aggressive 'denial', as well as deliberate non-acknowledgement of contributions that 'the Other' has made towards the ethos of America. It also required sometimes physical, political and legal barriers to the consumption of any information that would run counter to this massive hegemonic effort.
The virus I spoke about must have infected the network nationwide to have successfully accomplished such a task.
Again another anti-viral measure comes to mind:
Black History Month.
No matter your personal feelings about it, it is undeniably a direct response to the forced 'hiding' of the black contribution to society aka it's a counter to one of the most pervasive and long-running effects of the virus I've been talking about.
And so many more . . .
I mentioned at the outset a tendency some have of not delving into a person's ethnicity as the solution to the race problem in this country. The Melting Pot metaphor is an impossibility as far as I'm concerned. In fact I find it to be a useless construct. Being 'colorless' will never be an honest utterance - you can't help but 'see' it.
A learned, 'default' respect for the common humanity WITHIN our various rainbow-hued 'packaging' and 'makes' is a much more sound and workable policy prescription for race relations. I've seen and experienced fierce camaraderie with people of different ethnicities where their physical differences and cultural origins are appreciated and reverently understood, but end up not mattering as much as the human respect and empathy we have for each other.
But this was achieved in all examples only AFTER the evident differences were digested, and respectful, intellectual curiosity about each other's culture and history was set ablaze in each person.
Then the common humanitarian concerns we all have and experiences fused us together.
A mosaic of friends.
The definition of America needs to resemble the mosaic that we really are and have been.
The melting pot metaphor is counter to the spirit of reality and in fact the inevitable future of this country.
Make the network a mosaic with all 'users' having 'administrative rights' . . . so to speak.
Then and only then can we truly start to be rid of this age-old, societal Stuxnet.
(C) Dike Matthew 3/1/14
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