Tag Archives: disenfranchised

Keyholes

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Posted by on in Community, distraction issues, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 26, 2016, Chula Vista-

We went to see the film “Doctor Strange”, this evening.  It’s a highly entertaining account of mystics being able to bend time, space and matter- for good or for ill.  One of the characters mentions to Dr. Strange that, in being concerned with his own ego, he is seeing the universe through a keyhole- and imagining his view to be all-encompassing.

So many of us seem to be seeing the world through keyholes of our own device.   The two extremes in out national politics have been doing so, for sometime. The keyholes seem to be also getting smaller and smaller.  It is also apparent that the backdrop, behind the door, is getting dimmer and dimmer.

Any time in history, when people feel totally disenfranchised, has been fraught with severe pendulum swings.  The decline and fall of Imperial Rome, the French Revolution and its aftermath, and the fall of the Soviet Union  are each an example of this, albeit differing in severity.  Jacobin France is one of the deadliest examples of people looking at the world through keyholes, and seeing nothing but enemies- even in the faces of those who were their allies, only a short time before.

It is no coincidence that the leader of a White Supremacist splinter group identified his personal role model as Napoleon Bonaparte.  This, to me, is a clear indication of the intentions of his particular entourage.  Sowing chaos, in this large and disparate society, may seem impossible- but look to Rome, and to Russia.  It only takes a relative few opportunists to bring it about- and with the advent of false news reporting, the mayhem can come about rather quickly.

Once again, to be safe, at any given time, is to be vigilant beforehand.  I do not see the answer to our nation’s current growing pains to be drawing our wagons into  tight circles, such as supremacist or nativist fantasies, or safe zones.  The real solution, in my humble view, is wider inclusion.  There will never be a time when I cut off my conservative friends to curry favour with people on the Left, or vice versa.  I will not shun my friends of colour or of sexual identities that aren’t my own, just so that my White and heterosexual friends are assuaged- or vice versa.

It’s time to open the door, for a broad view.

The Road to 65, Mile 151: Smoke and Fire

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Posted by on in Social

April 28, 2015, Phoenix-  I’ve been in Baltimore three times.  The second, and longest, stay in the city was a week, in 1972.  I got off a bus in East Baltimore, and walked about ten blocks, through an old and visibly proud African-American neighbourhood.  There were hints of a place going to seed, but more common were the well-kept yards and people greeting one another in friendship, as I’ve found in lots of places.   At no time did I feel unsafe.

Similarly,I have driven through south Chicago,  south central Los Angeles,the Bronx and Harlem, and walked all over Washington, DC, and not felt at risk.  The thing to remember is:  “Black on Black” violence is far more frequent than “interacial” crime.  I have never been struck, or held at gunpoint, by a person of African descent. There are many, I know, who have had very different experiences, and my sorrow for your losses.

The violence in Baltimore, yesterday and today, will end up hurting Black people more than any other group.  This has been the experience of countless other people, in too many other cities, large and small, across the United States, in the United Kingdom, France and South Africa.  The poor end up poorer.

There is a dynamic at work, at the opposite end of the social scale:  Pursue the well-being of society, only to the extent that it doesn’t upend the current economic system.  Thus, we have calls for “soul-searching”, each time a riot breaks out, or a high-profile person is killed.  What is needed, and sorely, instead, is soul-action.

One can best effect change locally.  I grew up in what many would call a “white-bread” town.  There was still a lot of need there.  Lower-class whites were somewhat “privileged”, but they were still regarded as lower-class. I tried my best to call attention, as a teenager, to issues like economic disparity and civil rights, seeing them as closely-tied.  I was ridiculed for this, but I noticed that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were saying the same things.  The Irish kids who cheered their assassinations were biting the hands that were outstretched to them.  The Italian and Polish kids who groused about Affirmative Action, seeing it as permanent, and a privilege system all its own, were way off the mark.

My conclusion was that, unless and until people saw how they were being manipulated to separate themselves from others, and did something to build a bond with people to whom they were more closely tied than they thought, there would be the same cycle of riot and rebellion, followed by oppression (by the same people who used divide and conquer), followed by a period of acquiescence, then more riot and rebellion.

Solutions?   The disenfranchised must vote.  Citizens attending, and speaking out at, public meetings is crucial.  Parents actually bringing up their kids is not subject to substitution. The politician must be held to viewing the title public servant as more than a sobriquet.

Further:  Women are the equal partners of men, and not just within the bounds of matrimony.  There is neither a favoured class, nor a protected class.  Political Correctness, the ultimate band-aid for society’s boils, deserves to be consigned to the refuse pile.  Human decency could ably take its place.  See someone who looks different from you walking in your direction?  Stay on the same path, and offer an appropriate greeting.  “How’re you doin?'” or “What’s happening?” are words I have heard from countless people, in cities all over the country.

These are simple thoughts, but the great innovators have brought change to society, not by quantum leaps, or fell swoops.  The changes have been systematic, and through persistence.  This has been true of everything from the automobile industry to the expansion of civil rights.  So it must be for the reconstruction of neighbourhoods:  Not through gentrification, not through creation of urban deserts, but “brick by brick, block by block” , designed by and for the benefit of those already living there, as well as artisans and entrepreneurs who are actually invited by the community, rather than by the real estate market.

Extinguish the fire and clear the smoke.