The "Racist" In All of Us
By Vincent Fiore (05/12/05)
From a personal standpoint, the most frustrating and misunderstood aspect of racism is the usage of the word. There is no doubt that throughout these United States, racism, as practiced by actual racist, is a painful and harmful reality.
But while racism means that you literally judge a person’s physical and intellectual capabilities based solely on the observation that they are different from you in outward appearances, I am of the opinion that very few Americans today are real and avowed racist that practice racism.
But for years, the mainstream media has all too willingly fed the maw of the racism beast by pitting groups of people against one another. And predictably, the smaller of these groups--the many minority groups that the media cater to--have all too willingly accepted the “fact” that they, the “dissimilar” of American society, are victims.
But aside the media’s oft color-coded reporting upon nearly anything that involves people of different races, post-1965 racism has devolved into a lucrative enterprise.
Along with the pervasive liberalism that masquerades as a news outlet or daily paper, content to sell their brand of news regarding race relations as a one-sided affair, individual and organizational race-hustlers continue to mine a once-rich vein of racism.
America had its founding fathers, and so too does the business of racism. Standouts come to mind. Such “giants” of the race business would include Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan. These three men, combined with the might of the liberal media machine, have caused much misunderstanding and resentment.
For years, the Jacksons and Sharptons of the country have “played that race card” over and above. Their patrons have included Latinos, Asians, American Indians…heck, its easier to just say “everybody but white males.”
Yet for all their remonstrative behavior and bad acting on behalf of the so-called downtrodden, they remain relevant only to the establishment media that continually uplifts them, and a small minority of disengaged and permanently disgruntled beings who seek strife--because for them--it has become a way of life in so many ways.
On Monday, May 2, 2005, all the bad actors that contend to represent the black race descended on the National Press Club in Washington, to kick-off a reprise of the “Million Man March,” which drew tens of thousands to its first rally in 1995.
(www.nysun.com/article/13027)
So what happened? Nothing of value, as it was as it always has been, and that is business of race for race hustlers. Instead of relaying a message of self-empowerment and responsibility, leaders Sharpton, Jackson, and Farrakhan preached to the weakness of the black spirit, a manufactured spirit of their making that preaches constant oppression, continuous rejection, and inconsolable self-pity.
Sharpton, Jackson, and Farrakhan ranted upon the usual themes of strife, and the “poor little black me” mantra that stirs the soul of the listener, but may also stain it.
Perhaps the most outrageous line of the day came from Farrakhan, who always seems to out-do his fellow equivocators:
Farrakhan: “If anybody deserves to strap a bomb on themselves and give pain for the pain that we have suffered, it is we. But none of us would kill innocent life for political purposes.”
(www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_050205/content/stop_the_tape_2.member.html)
It is all in a day’s work for these men. But living in New York as I do makes me as qualified as anyone else in regard to how we view one another and what we are saying about the races. New York, after all, is the cosmopolitan melting pot of the world. In New York, race and ethnicity change from town to town, block to block.
Blacks and all other minority groups that cover themselves with the cloak of “victimhood” may have had real concerns once upon a time, but today suffer the same transgressions that everyone else in society from time to time deals with. We are all offended at one time or another. We are all put upon or rejected at times, and that of itself does not mean racism.
But there is a “racism” we all share-- Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asians, and all the rest of America’s varied peoples who believe in an established American culture and morals. We “hate” no one. Rather, we have an intense confusion that eventually leads to suspicion as to why so many who are here in America now and those that come here, do not embrace and invest in America’s cultural distinction as a land of many who gather together to form nation of one.
I have spoken to many who belong to the minority groups that the mainstream media paints as victims and the so-called civil rights leaders inflame. There is no wide-spread racism over people of different skin complexion or foreign-sounding names. The “racism” that pervades America today is the celebration (by some) of an ungenuine multiculturalism, or non-assimilation, which can only harm a sovereign nation by dividing it against itself.
That is what men like Sharpton, Jackson, and Farrakhan seek to do. That is what other leaders and organizations of most minority groups seek to do, groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) or the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), who care little about a progressive program of assimilation for prospective Muslim or Mexican citizens.
If you asked, and if someone had the will to tell you, Americans are just sick of the hyphenated, multicultural twaddle that passes for “rights” these days. We really cannot understand, outside of economic reasons, why anyone who comes to these shores would not bend over backwards to become an American. Instead, we have millions of strangers in a (to them) strange land, who latch on to the Sharptons and Jacksons and special interest groups, as if that is what represents America best.
So the next time you hear the race pimps selling their shtick to the “oppressed and downtrodden” of American society and blaming the “angry white male” for all that is evil and unfair, ask them a question. Ask them, if after forty years of singing the same old fight song, if the melody has gone astray, and have the words lost their meaning?
I think it has, and I am no racist. I am just one of millions upon millions of Americans who wonder why so many would listen to those who would tell you that you are on the outside, looking in.
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