An Op Ed Piece
Unlawfully unmarked Federal Troops have invaded the city of
Portland Oregon to provide a show of Federal force with which to threaten and
bully other cities in other states into suppressing protests supporting
societal change for equality and justice for people of color in the United
States. Now the tide of bullying extends to other states as well.
The true message of Portland and what is going on these days is one of white fragility in
its most eloquently elevated condition. The greater the push for equality the
greater the use of force to keep that change from taking place, once again
reinforcing the underlying purpose of law enforcement in this country as being
that of protecting the institutions and
systems that keep white privilege in place. As the voices of change call out
for equalization, those steeping in the security of white privilege feel threatened, become extremely alarmed and call for help to keep their institutions in place. After all, says
the white privileged person, we are all good people. We mean no one any harm. Please protect us from these irate and disturbed unhappy people.
Please make them go away so everything can stay the comfortable same. Call in
the military if needed! Do not let our way of life perish! Taking no
responsibility for the systemic suppression they live in that directly harms
huge portions of the population and therefore they are able to claim innocence
and cry for protection. The use of force is then justified to protect their very white way of life and the systems they are comfortable with.
Does this somehow not remind one of the French Revolution?
The simple happy playing of the days by those with income, wealth and the means
for a happy life that allowed the aristocracy to ignore their responsibility to
the people upon whom their way of life depended until an uprising of what
finally became utter hatred was spawned that brought them to their death and ushered
in a military coup? Is this not the basis of white fragility? The heart-felt fear
of loss of those with privilege? And is not that fear the basis of class war and
revolution? Is it not the lesson of history – that those who ignore the cries
of their brothers and sisters do so to their peril? That the innocently guilty
cry innocent on their way to the guillotine? That a whole class of people is
punished for its blind existence in and dependence upon the privileges it
refused to acknowledge and felt entitled to?
Can we not learn anything from history? Must we repeat the
blindness over and over again? Will we not listen – listen to the voices crying
in our streets and take a second look at ourselves? True disaster will be
heralded by the deaf and the blind. The very worst that they fear and fight to
keep from happening will come upon us all collectively unless we begin to move
toward change. Toward equality. Toward true freedom for all. The human spirit
will not suffer constant suppression and oppression. The blood of our brothers
and sisters killed through oppression, repression, and violence calls to us
from the streets. The cries of those standing for them call to us from the
streets. For all the Evangelicals out there – God is listening. Not to your
prayers and cries for help, and remonstrances of innocence, but to the cries of
the blood of the dead and their brothers and sisters calling to Him in the street. Wake
Up.
Tell your dog to lay off. Quell his military trained private forces sent to
defend and preserve your way of life and your dominance and supremacy by attacking and suppressing "others", and put your hearing aides on
and listen. We are all hanging in the balance waiting for you to wake up.
Sitting on the precipice of your disaster. This whole society with all its
light and freedom will go down the slide into autocracy and military dominance with
you, if you, the good white people, choose to stay deaf. The light of freedom will go out in America
because of you. And you will think it is everyone else's fault. You will not even see it happening. It will feel like "the right thing" to you....until it is far too late. Wake UP.
