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"I know that there's one person I'd like to meet."
Why?
Do you expect her to teach you bookkeeping and office management basics? 😉
I’ve been sitting here reading the media articles on the Internet and readers comments in the media and what I have seen on blogs and in chatrooms on the Internet. It came to me a while back that the reason I can see through people like this, like they were glass, is because …..I was one of them….long ago.
I understand bigots and racists because I walked with them, laughed with them. I know the games, the words, the strategies, the hate and especially the mob mentality. I was no different than them, not really. I had been taught like many people, even as a child through politicians and the church and movies and TV and books and some children through their parents…..what I was to ‘believe’. Some of those teachings were direct such as what came from the church and how they saved the ‘heathens’, but other lessons were much more subtle. However the main goal of society was to make me part of the herd and to get along…you had to go along.
When it came to the Black civil rights movement…we in Canada were removed for the most part from that. I can’t even remember seeing a Black man except on the docks when the sailors got off the boats in St John’s harbour. The first Black man I ever really had any interaction with was a porter on a train from Nfld to Ontario. What we seen up here in the frozen north was the history of slavery in the US and many slaves escaped to Canada to save their lives. Then there was JFK and Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. All of the atrocities of what happened to the Black people from the slave ships to the cotton fields to countless other degradations that were inflicted upon them were suddenly forced into the spotlight of all societies as the civil rights movement flourished and people got ….educated.
Meanwhile we up here sat comfortably on the outside looking in at the US and the racism both direct and indirect from some of their politicians and even their own ordinary average people. We had not for the most part been taught the racism and bigotry and hatred against Black people that had been indoctrinated into many US people. We for the most part grew up with a clean slate in our minds and when the civil rights movement started we were able to judge with an open mind. We seen what had happened to the Black people and we seen how their history had changed them and we seen the results of what greed and domination over others did to those people for generation after generation.
But then there was Canada….. and we had our own’ Black people’…but we called them Natives.
I guess every society has to have someone to hate….especially when we ‘conquered ‘ them and then later treated them with injustice and hatred which we want to forget and how dare they ever bring that up and even more…..how dare they ever ask for what is rightfully theirs!!!!!…that was long ago, forgetaboutit and move on!!
Then when the people did stand up for themselves …and we don’t want to talk about facts or the truth because we know we will lose….so off to plan B which was…degrade them, laugh at them, make childish jokes about them, lie about them, tell half truths, slander them and do anything else except…..deal with the facts.
I was just as bad many years ago. I don’t recall ever laughing at Native people or making jokes about them (I was brought up better than that)….but I had just as bad a disease….I didn’t care! I should have known better because I came from a heritage of oppression and I was taught about it from A to Z , land stolen, murderous invaders, laws enacted to keep us down and in poverty, laws against our language and traditions …..and my family fought against 400 years of it.
I don’t know why I didn’t see it, my complacency,…..maybe it was youth….maybe it was just the way it was at the time as personal life was more important….maybe it was lack of knowledge because the truth was not taught in schools and media portrayed Natives as conquerors always do when speaking about those they ground into the earth. But whatever the reason was I just didn’t compare the Native people to what had happened exactly to other people in history, including my own.
Then at some point something happened. I don’t know exactly when, but it was what some would call an epiphany. I know the bits and pieces but they are too long to go into here. Suffice to say however that I found my soul. Not the religious soul but the spiritual one. I suppose I had a good hard look at myself, because in life the one thing few people find is their true self and they waste their life just existing. I was determined to change, not just for me, but for all those in life that I had ignored. I had stood by and done nothing about injustice. I had laughed with the people I knew and become part of the herd…..a mindless follower. Looking back at my time in the herd I remember that every time someone made a joke about a race of people and I laughed….inside me there was a knot in my stomach. It was a gut feeling that it just wasn’t right. As time passed I realized what that was….it was the conscience my grandmother had brought me up with. I hadn’t understood it until then. I decided I would never let that happen again. I would no longer waste my life….being one of them. I also decided that I had to fight against injustice, not just because it was the right thing to do but maybe also because deep inside I felt I had a lot to make up for.
I will no longer be part of the sheep and those who join in the chorus for approval from the herd. It reminded me of something my grandmother said and it came back to me one day…..”an honest man has many troubles”. So now and for a long time past I have fought prejudice and bigotry and hate and injustice and I will do it any way I can and with any means at my disposal and any means I can find because when the day comes and I take in my last breath on this mortal plane I will do it with a clear conscience, not a convenient conscience.
- “A king may move a man, but that man can also move himself, and only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that howsoever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone, even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say, "But I was told by others to do thus," or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice. Remember that.”
"Then at some point something happened. I don’t know exactly when, but it was what some would call an epiphany. I know the bits and pieces but they are too long to go into here. Suffice to say however that I found my soul. Not the religious soul but the spiritual one."
It is called brainwashing. It happens to a lot of folks.
Careful - you may find yourself on his "ignore" list (like me!) 🙂
I'm still curious when these racist attitudes started.
There is no one answer. They start in various ways but deep inside there are the foundations……
- First there is the herding complex that goes way back to the beginning. People felt safe among their ‘own’. Because we are visual animals we see those like ourselves and we feel more trust in them than someone who looks ‘different’. Basically it’s throwback in our genetics and some people just never find the courage to step down from the tree.
- Then there is the conquering concept which came with human greed, and if you ever notice in history for the most part humans always attack and conquer those who are different from their own. It doesn’t have to be visually different, it could be language or traditions or religion but we don’t often attack….’our own’ because we would be criticized or ostracized by other members of our own herd.
- With the conquerors came the need to keep those who were defeated down and not have the opportunity to either take control or fraternize with those in authority. Conquerors however eventually got more savvy as time went by and they realized that you cannot control people indefinitely so the next plan was to absorb them into the society. By doing this eventually the people would disappear and the new generations under the rule of those in power would just fall into step. The Romans were the most renowned for doing this because of the vast areas they conquered and ruled over. Many times they even adopted some of the traditions of those they conquered in order to make the people feel that they weren't ...'all that bad'. It was better to cajole the people than to try and militarily control them forever, which was time consuming, very costly and could cause a lot of death and destruction. Still though they had their rules and laws in place so that anyone who stood up to them or disagreed with them could be dealt with swiftly…..and if anyone said anything about it ….the answer was simple …”it’s the law and they broke it”. How…convenient...back then....and now.
That’s the basics…..the DNA of bigotry, racism, control, greed, authoritarianism, fear and hate that some people still have in their gene pool. Humans may think we are superior but in truth a lot of humans haven’t crawled far from the tree, or out of the cave.
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