"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." MLK — excerpt from “Letter From A Birmingham Jail, April 1963
There are three very, very great social ills that have run rampant upon these shores since the first arrival of Christopher Columbus and his band of excessively horny men. Raw naked greed...a seemingly unquenchable thirst for violence...and racism. We are very fast approaching a time of reckoning for all three.
Within 30 years of Columbus’ voyages the Natives that he encountered were virtually wiped off the face of the Earth. And it would be the absolute height of denial to not attribute their virtual annihilation to the unwarranted greed, violence and racism unleashed upon them by Columbus and his men. And it is those very same three attributes that have been the primary trademarks of the society we’ve been building on these shores ever since.
It is virtually impossible to look back at the history of America and not see an extreme pattern of greed as the primary motivator for an enormous percentage of the most significant moments in our collective history. Columbus’ voyages themselves? Greed. The fight for American independence (in fact, virtually every war we’ve ever fought? Greed (and imperialistic greed). Chattel slavery? Downright demonic f’ing Greed?! The Civil War? Greed. Westward expansion (from the 13 original Colonies) aka Manifest Destiny? Greed. Jim Crow? Greed. Right up to the very fast approaching inevitable and hideous crash of our present economy as a direct result of “tax reform” uncontrollably increasing our debt? STILL Greed.
Now violence. From Columbus’ own journals, he began his entries of the Natives he encountered by describing them as overwhelmingly generous and kind. Yet, he and his men returned that generosity and kindness with raping their preteens, working them to death in mines, and just plain torturing them. A century later, a variation of the same brutal pattern repeated itself in the Colonies with the Natives they encountered as well. To the point of us spending the next four centuries attempting to wipe them off the face of the Earth too. Next, the violence inherent in the inhumanity of chattel slavery and Jim Crow virtually speaks for itself, so there’s almost no need for me to elaborate here. Also of note, in our entire 241 year history, we’ve NOT been at war with someone a total of 17 whole years. Yes, 17! Which somewhat brings us to now. We are now seeing almost weekly images of our children being shot up and permanently scarred, and yet we collectively continue to allow our Government to do nothing but throw up their hands and mindlessly and heartlessly offer up “thoughts and prayers”. While indirectly connected to that, probably the simplest barometer of of our own continuing hunger for violence lies in what presently passes for entertainment to us. Multiple movies full of imagery of teens and preteens fighting to the death are not only green-lit, they’re absolutely massive blockbusters? Then there’s our TV. Namely reality TV. Where according to past ratings we have routinely most watched people violently pitted against one another. And we see nothing ostensibly wrong with generating huge TV ratings from watching things like people trying to “Outwit. Outplay. Outlast.” for 30-plus seasons. While our highest rated sport involves watching huge men give one another proven brain damage. And lastly, we pay a single boxer $100 million a fight to beat another to unconsciousness. Quite simply, we can’t change who we are as a hideously violent society until we finally admit that that’s who we are as a society.
Which now leaves only our seemingly endless five-centuries-old hunger for racism to be talked about in this discussion. But...since we never seem to stop JUST talking about it, I’ll just skip directly to the end result of it all. After five centuries of every conceivable manifestation of racism on these shores, it has now culminated in having a President of the United States whose fundamental (and very, very intentionally unwavering on his part) appeal to his base is in combining our two centuries-old insatiable hungers for violence and racism, by inflicting utterly unnecessary and gratuitous violence on POC (both overt and covert). Even if doing so slowly and quietly undoes the health and well-being of the entire rest of society to do so.
Columbus got us started five centuries ago on this path of greed, violence and racism. And now we are a hair’s breadth away from economic and societal self-destruction because of those same three endlessly repeating moral weaknesses. If we choose to fight them in the name of “a return to order”, we are absolutely doomed!
Will we instead finally wake up and see our collective need to fight for justice???