Racial Tensions Redux
Tensions repeated, no real surprise, just disappointment. People will enjoy their little discriminations, after all. Gone underground, that's all. Erupting in vile explosions in the light of day, from time to time. Hard to believe for some of us that we harbour such a recalcitrant inability to accept differences between ourselves. Surface differences. But there it is.In some places, at some times, black and white remain opposing forces of denial and distrust. There is a hateful resurgence of shallow prejudices coming to the surface. But isn't it heartening to see the black community come together in a combined refusal to accept the conditions that were once demeaningly endemic in the society they share with the larger white population of the United States?
Cymbals clash, bugles blare, the heavens resound with the clarity of their call to action. Not being there, one can only dare hope there are ample white supporters in the throng of civil rights demonstrators converging on Jena, Louisiana.
Symbols matter. Particularly when they're hateful for what they represent. The Nazi swastika, for example. A playful noose hung from the limbs of a tree as another example. The symbolism is a blatant provocation. Born of a simmering hatred. Ensuring a once-embattled and bitterly vulnerable demographic doesn't remain too complacent.
Was a time when the law simply was blind when a white person violated the human rights of a black person. When the law smote heavily and often with deadly application when a black person was even suspected of violating the property rights of a white neighbour. When segregation was imposed legally to preserve a way of life that consigned a black population to non-status.
Whispered campaigns of deliberate, unanswerable accusation were once sufficient to consign a black person to the purgatory of long confinement. Finally, there were sufficient numbers of people of goodwill of every colour come together to extinguish the darkness of racial discrimination in the United States. But it lives on, there, and here and everywhere.
A part and portion of the human condition. Where people must find others to blame for the misfortunes befalling themselves, and the likeliest targets for blame are those most unlike themselves.
Labels: Human Fallibility, Justice
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, September 20, 2007
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