The Elephant In the Room

For nearly all of us, our journey through the American experience continues to remind us that many things from our past are still a part of our current reality.  The transition of a lot of this venom has been etched into laws, policies, cultures, minds and hearts.  These kinds of things helped to set the tone and the agenda for what would come next.  The aftermath or enduring legacy is what we are fighting and dealing with today.  This manuscript of the “New Jim Crow,” is in full living color, close up and on display.  A lot of us are shaking our heads, rubbing our eyes and covering our ears and all the while saying... “I can’t believe this is happening,” ... again! 

It is fully apparent that there are a lot of people, especially some “old heads” who are still caught in the past, can’t let it go and move on to doing something more constructive.  They are forever stuck in the past and are so engrained into a mindset in which they only see life through shades of gray and not in the colors of humanity.  This kind of ideology is at the epicenter of why we cannot “push and pull” our county out of poverty, injustice, war, discrimination, health care, crime and lawlessness.  The outliers, impact and all the outcomes are pointing to the fact that the problems in our society goes much deeper and is more widespread. 

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that a lot of people need to step back, refocus and retool in how to do the right thing.  Many of us have lost or were never told of the lessons of our history, the American experience.  If we never learned anything from history, we are bound to repeat it again, again and again.  So, here we are again and some of us did not get the memo or missed that history lesson altogether.

At the core of it all is “racism.”   For it is racism that reflects a state of mind that believes that one person, race or group is better than another.  It is the belief that members of one race possess abilities and characteristics specific to that race and because of those differences one must distinguish it as being inferior or superior to another race or ethnic group.  This leads to the widespread issues of prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against others of a different race is based on a general belief that one’s own race is superior.  Racism is real and no matter what standard you use to determine the merits of a particular situation... it is still the elephant in the room.   What do you think?