And your audience includes white people…who are in deep denial.
And they have been there for 400 years.
The denial and hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson, who had an African American wife, but still wrote the very opposite “theory” from what he put in the Declaration of Independence….
It’s like two worlds White people live in…1.Like Jefferson lofty language sponsoring democracy and equality..2. Reality…getting rich off chattel slavery.
And the common denominator, rampant and ignorant racism and prejudice that led Jefferson, the tortured soul that he was, not even freeing his own mulatto son and daughters in his will.
“All Men are Created Equal with inalienable rights….wrong. Native Americans no…African Americans…no. Asian Americans no…Muslim Americans no….Gay Americans…no.
No. No…No…
And now the ultimate of American hypocrisy: electing an out and out racist and homophobe President who unapologetically rails against anyone who even dares to challenge white supremacy.
Why are people frustrated? On top of it all, a pandemic that is proving everyday: 1. The Utter incompetence and stupidity of the racist President 2. A screaming inequity between Americans relative to health care: If you are of color you get rationed health care, and poverty, and die from the pandemic, if you are white, you are safer.
Safety…safety…that is what we all crave especially right now…But for our brown and black brothers and sisters we know, all white people know, they and their children and grandchildren are NOT as safe as white people.
Every parent and grandparent, no matter how inept in other areas, always looks out for the young…and. there is a big “except” in the front of people of color when it comes to protection.
This means a life of constant anxiety of giving talks on how to deal with a world that shows hatred toward five year olds all the time…
For a time, this meant lynching, legal discrimination, you name it..
Now, it is the subtle letter in the mail that says, “thanks for applying but we are going in a different direction; or sorry that house is sold already, even though there is no sold sign on it, or the teacher who is so beat up by failure that they see every black child as lost before they even have a chance….and the lower expectations are a fulfilling prophecy that dooms that normal child to a lifetime of abnormality in the white world.
Young organizers take on the beast, with little knowledge of how incredibly strong it is…
Watching a Principal, who later was on the State Education Board, render “locker to locker” counseling, throwing a 3rd grader from one locker to another to “teach him a lesson” for teasing a girl….and this white Principal was considered a friend to the black community. And that little boy learned quick that violence was the way to deal with people. Another breakdown of White privilege.
I saw a lot…I lived it. I saw the Native Americans who died young, hopeless and lost, not having a culture left…I saw 13 year old mothers, of poverty, who were children when there baby was born, and I knew full well that the baby, with alcoholic syndrome, had no chance at all.
No chance…that is the mantra that is repeated in a dull heart breaking, that can deny every day of a young black or brown child’s existence….
And then the violent law n order reaction, the military police state, that is swift and violent in putting down a shoplifter or a suspect of a fake $20 bill.
The young protesters it comes naturally to, because they have lived under repression since they can remember. They are the kids who don’t get the toy, who use the fourth generation baseball glove, who even skip the white kid’s birthday party (if they are invited) because of the vastness of privilege they will walk into.
I was a poor kid. We didn’t have much. And I walked into houses that made our converted garage look, well, like a converted garage.
And I went to Stanford, with a future Presidential candidate, a Hollywood heart throb and others, who were so privileged they couldn’t even carry on a conversation without offending me…I almost left, until I found a fraternity, the first one integrated on the west coast, that had with its limited diversity, a chance to see the other side of America…
I know a couple black guys who will first rip you a new one intectually, then if you still are standing, do the same thing physically…Those are brothers who I met and love to this day!
I already knew about the poverty, given some of my upbringing (Dad made more money as we got older)…but I knew castes, because in Redding there were definitely kids who “lived on the hill”.
It comes naturally when you are dying to save your people…
My late in life realization that I was from a “mixed marriage” rammed that reality into my Disney gilded life….and yet, I still live in a nice house, with two cars, and privilege….
That….THAT is America’s original sin!