Old Tattered Tool for Economic Power Could Still Threaten Key Vote
(EUGENE, Ore.) - Millions of Americans wake up every day with the sure knowledge that their full Constitutional participation in the world’s greatest, most powerful nation is still denied to them. Don't fool yourself, racism is alive and well.
Centuries of research and solid scientific surveillance proves that mankind is universally the same both physically and mentally in every part and parcel of this space-floating globe.
Skin-color, culture, economic status, even intense religious faith-driven differences surely do exist; but the human equation regarding equality remains unchanged.
Yet, a now tattered-and-torn myth is still allowed by some who call themselves “American” to shape and control the freedoms they cherish for themselves by denying that same freedom to others.
"Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them", Edward R. Murrow once stated in a very public forum.
That’s the current unavoidable demand as our crucial 2008 vote demands essential citizen responsibility. You may want to clarify your own attitudes by close examination --and a simple “mirror test” you do alone.
Conscious or unconscious reactions to the proven myth of racism may shape the 2008 election in key states. No true American wants that to happen, since that will negate, defy, and defeat our whole history since 1776.
John McCain stooped to use that racism-effect when he referred to Barack Obama with a disdainful “That one!” in the second Presidential debate.
His posture, facial expression --even the position of his hands--indicated clearly to this observer precisely what he intended to communicate to all, without fail.
“That one” --to John McCain at the moment-- was “an uppity black boy”, to put it into clear red-neck lingo, learned long ago as reporter in working-mode. “That one” has been nationally recognized, now, as clearly coded language --sure to ignite racism for political impact-- for some American audience groups.
"The ugliness of bigotry stands in direct contradiction to the very meaning of America." ~ Hubert Humphrey
That conclusion comes from several authoritative and skilled observers seeing the same thing in precisely the same way --and reporting it in about the same words used here, too.
McCain earlier accused Obama of caring more for another issue “to win election” than he does “for the nation.” This open action on national television must clearly be seen as demonstrating something other than “Country First”. “Campaign First” fits the case more closely.
The irrational reasons given for racial prejudice, when forced to the surface by highly respectable research, vary wildly --and also very emotionally --among those allowing themselves to be so negatively engaged.
But all end up with precisely the same conclusion by those involved: “They are different from me”, with the added unstated inference that “me” is always superior, somehow. (NOTE: Check out the research for yourself; Wikipedia provides easy access to centuries-worth.)
It is an appeal used for centuries to manipulate millions of workers against other workers who happen to be “different” on natural characteristics, or cultural concerns, or even religion --and always turn out to be competitive in the workplace, too.
“The biggest problem though out the history of man is the fact that racism is anything but an anomaly.” ~ Erik Hansen
Somehow those who are “different” always end up also seeming to threaten “the others” economically via added emphasis on their unfair competition. That’s the intended and original purpose of the myth, set into motion many decades ago, building on more normal and natural consequences of centuries-old confrontation.
Could anything be more damaging to the very concept of democracy? Conscious use as an election element denies and defies any offsetting statements about “Country First”, no matter how vociferously repeated.
Could anything be more divisive --and extremely costly in terms of demanded worldwide cooperation now-- for those seeking to trade and work and learn from any and all other nations? Someone sincerely pledging to be “a uniter, not a divider” would not --and conscientiously could not-- ever use that very well-known divisive impact simply for political advantage.
In this beginning decade of the 21st Century, how can we permit ourselves to be deluded by a distorted and disproved myth and its consequences?
This one has cost workers more than any other single issue, in economic, cultural and social losses insufferable in any 21st Century society.
Are some Americans still so self-deluding as to fall --again!!-- for the same old malarkey used against them unmercifully, in the past?
“What!?? ME, a racist?!!”
Find out for yourself: Take the easy mirror-test all by your lonesome, open to your own conscientious self-check.
Just look yourself right in your own eyes in any mirror --and determine for yourself your own best reaction to the realities you now KNOW to be TRUE.
"I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse." ~ Mark Twain
Are YOU a counterpart and companion for those profiting from racism all those decades?
The Constitutional right of choice for our leadership --the vote-- extends to all citizens, regardless of any and all “differences”. Denial of that right constitutes a form of treason to the very nation those so acting claim to love so well.
Here, for our full national life span, the very concept of a black person becoming our President was so hatefully received, by so many misinformed and thus malignly distorted in their thinking, that it was viewed as an impossibility.
This campaign has proven how false and misleading that very thin idea has become --as tattered and torn by our realities as the myth of racism itself, and for the same reasons.
Desperate competition for world bounty, via “free trade” and globalization, and rapid development of strong economic and social-cultural achievements across the world continue at phenomenal pace.
We’ve finally come to straight-on confrontation with an old and tattered myth shaping our own choice of leadership talents, sorely demanded by those inescapable world-shaping events.
What stronger test of our own commitments, set forth for us by prescient Founders in their Bill of Rights and our Constitution, than to honor what they gave us to guide our actions --and our choices-- into the coming centuries?
When YOU vote, do so with this true and honest and comprehensive understandings of racism-as-myth, created for manipulative purposes, to protect, preserve and further project the compliance of the misinformed.
To allow that to happen to YOU and YOUR choice, now that you are well-informed, is to make yourself fully complicit with an intolerable, insufferable, contemptuous and extremely damaging attack on the very most essential concept of democracy itself.
Be guided by that self-challenging “mirror check”.
*****************************************************
Henry Clay Ruark is the one of, if not the most experienced, working reporter in the state of Oregon, and possibly the entire Northwest. Hank has been at it since the 1930's, working as a newspaper staff writer, reporter and photographer for organizations on the east coast like the Bangor Maine Daily News.Today he writes Op-Ed's for Salem-News.com with words that deliver his message with much consideration for the youngest, underprivileged and otherwise unrepresented people.
Op Ed: Myth of Racism Denies, Defies Our DemocracySalem-News.com