Slavery — If You’re Not Sure…
The world is a very different place today, post Trump. More than ever, there seems to be a surreptitious understanding among all the big players on the world’s stage that the hot button is race relations.
Racism has always been around. Well, that’s not exactly true. Depending on who you talk to; racism either started in the 19th century where it was coined “scientific racism” where scholars attempted to distinguish inferior classes based on origin. And some think true racism started with Hitler.
Intolerance, however is as old as man. It often manifests as clash of religious ideologies where acceptance by the whole of a society isn’t based on your skin color but your willingness to accept a omnipotent being heralded as the true savior. Thousands of years have passed and people are still killing other people based solely on their beliefs.
Race and our fascination with it as a talking point seems more relevant in a global age where transportation and communication has broken down many barriers. New generations coming up that have always known the world to be diverse and interesting, where acceptance and tolerance isn’t something that has to be considered or thought about — it just is.
Yet, there’s this itch. This underlying, middle of the back, no stick long enough to get at itch that festers just below the skin and you and I are forced to acknowledge it daily. Newspapers, television, social media and our friends network all seeing the ugly cousin in the corner — attempting to get our attention, to let us know that there’s a war on and somehow, the color of our skin should signify to the world our hierarchy in said world.
It’s a human condition. Our need to have everything in order and making sense. Social class has always been a part of the fabric of the human race — predicated more on wealth and education than bloodlines. Some cultures have varying degrees of social hierarchies which are dependent on both wealth and lineage. The most classic example of it would be our Queen.
Racism. It seems to be everywhere but nowhere. We’ve all heard people in our close circles make off color remarks — the standard cliches which have more to do with a loose moral character than hate. But we know there are groups that exist in that realm reserved exclusively for hatred. The obvious - kkk, aryans, isis and zionists are those that we can observe every day. The leak into our existence with behavior that is impossible for us to define because most of us, those with good moral compasses, have a difficult time understanding how one person can hate another they’ve never met.
Today, we have Trump. Perhaps not a racist by decree, but maybe by omission. Here we have a man whose basis for targeting specific groups of people is part of the herd mentality — under the moniker — “make America great again”. He wants to save everyone from a darkness that he and the establishment continue to drive home. “Rapists, drug dealers, murderers, religious extremists…” He believes the rhetoric and he believes that he is acting in the interest of the whole. There are resounding similarities to what Hitler preached. He believed Jews were evil and would be the demise of Germany and he convinced a majority of the German population to agree with him.
Fascism was born.
Eventually, all Germans — regardless of their moral beliefs and personal feelings about Jewish people- would be painted with the same brush. A national shame would fall upon that country that would take decades to erase. As each new generation comes up, they are further removed from that which their ancestors brought on the modern world but they will never, should never forget. Tragically, that one freedom so many Americans fought for, and died for, is lost on many of them today. They voted in fascism. It seemed like a great idea at the time but it seems history has a way of repeating itself.
I get their vote. Faced with choosing a leader that was mired in the status quo, who didn’t champion human rights, who supported two regimes that continue to challenge the world with their crimes against humanity. A leader whose sole purpose seemed to grab the brass ring, the ultimate prize — power.
Or, a buffoon. A man hardly worth taking seriously. A man who had everything given to him and used this to build an empty empire based on lies and cheating honest, hard working people out of their savings. A showman who knew exactly what trigger points to push to get maximum exposure and effect. He is on record publicly stating “If I ever ran for office, it would be as a Republican because they’re dumb” Actually, that’s a lie. He never said it but millions up millions of people believed it when the meme came out. Why use it then? Because it helps to make a point about who Trump is and the way he carried out his campaign. It had more to do with the show and half truths.
His campaign reminded me of P.T Barnum, the famous circus man who once said — “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public”.
Almost 100 million people did not vote in the election. I’m sure there are a lot of reasons — but if you consider Trump and Hillary split 100 million, even if another 50 had a eureka moment and put down one of the other two candidates…wait, strike that: electoral college and what not. That’s right, popular vote wasn’t going to get it done. I think a lot of intelligent Americans recognized this fact. The media skirts around it and, here we are today with Donald J Trump.
A few thousand people in different centers around the United States have protested and as each passing day goes by, more and more of them will go back to work, continue paying their bills, slowly accepting that the change they want may not come in their life time. They aren’t ready to give up just yet and they take to the social media airwaves, their protests filling up the newsfeeds — their memes while well intention-ed — are not always accurate and slowly, day by day, their attentions turn to cute cat memes while they go back to absorbing the toxic, and biased propaganda coming from those media agencies they choose to follow. Their anger is palpable but what are they to do?
Protest stops at the paycheck. We have far too much to loose in our battle to save the world. We watch helplessly as those warriors who have put the Earth and humanity first, at great physical peril, in places like North Dakota and in some small way, we help by sharing their cause with our other friends. But that’s as far as most of us can go. The safety of an arm chair critic can’t be over emphasized — it’s an important role but alas, one that won’t jeopardize that standard of living that has become so important living in a democratically free and open society.
The bills aren’t going to pay themselves and for most of us, the reality is that we’ll spend 150 dollars for every 100 dollars we make. Most of us aren’t supposed to pay those debts off. That is the very reason why the system works. While you may get ideas of changing the world, of becoming an activist — if the fear of a heavily militarized police force bearing down on you with water canons doesn’t dissuade — the fear of losing all of your possessions which, you don’t really own, should be more than enough to keep you at bay.
Slavery isn’t obvious. Our perception of a slave is a person shackled, oppressed and doing manual labor for an overbearing oligarch. It may be of the human trafficking that continues to go on in countries that we support both financially, and in trade. Slavery can and does have many faces.
It’s safe to say that nobody would willingly put those shackles on and march into a life of obedience and subservience, would they?
