It requires no extraordinary feat of perception, or especial analytic acumen, to observe that generally, white Americans have enjoyed many legally and socially sanctioned privileges which have been, in various degrees, denied to minority groups, notably, communities of color. Inarguably, African Americans, in particular, have historically faced inequitable and unjustified restrictions in their political, economic, and social lives. It is noteworthy that, even at the present day, among other pernicious practices, black Americans are experiencing a shameful populist putsch by many right-wingers, to illegally and immorally, limit or deny their democratically entitled, voting franchise. American racism is basically and fundamentally exemplified by the wrongful denial to a racial group, relevantly, the black population, the political and economic advantages of the white. Categorically, we would responsively and confidently, award America’s past, sordid enslavement of black people for agricultural servitude, its well-earned place as America’s “Original Sin.”
The pernicious continuance of such immoral degradation and prejudicial behavior by white against black citizens, so many decades after the legal disestablishment of slavery, is a continuing and conspicuous blemish upon our Nation; most particularly its publicly asserted, avowed principle of universal equality. The preceding observations, however, are presumably known, thus, we will, at this point in this essay, thematically, propose a needed solution; in sum, an increased emphasis and affirmative extension of actions by the greater number of right-thinking white citizens, in aid of the complete elimination, or at the very least, the material reduction of such unjust and harmful bigotry.
If our personally nuanced take, on the 18th Century novel, “Gulliver’s Travels,” by Jonathan Swift, is correct, it would make Swift’s work, among the earliest of statements on the irrationality and tragedy of unjust discrimination against others who look or behave in a different manner to the [English] “untraveled” [thoughtlessly conventional] observer. In the satirical work, hostility between those who had high heels, [the high Church] and those whose shoes had low heels [low Church] and those who broke their hard-boiled egg on one end, versus others who eat it from the other, are allegorical but are pointed references to the irrational animosity of the human persona against others of different stripe. Prejudice against “other” human beings who, by the natural, fortuitous experience of their birth, unpremeditatedly, inherit a darker skin color, is simply put, reductively ignorant and “Swiftian.”
Empirical reality, nevertheless, has persisted in the demonstration of deprivation and limitation of freedom on the part of minorities, racial and ethnic, due to said evident inclination to irrational and reductive subjective prejudice on the part of many white Americans. Our history has recounted the exceptional lives of many laudable people who have dedicated their lives to the amelioration of racism, including, Martin Luther King, Jr., Harriet Tubman, W.E.B. Dubois, Sojourner Truth, to name merely a small sampling, of this well-populated Honor Roll. Our salient observation is thematically concerned with the plain fact that these, memorable and celebrated lives, are all, uniformly, black.
In truth, as far as we can discern, a vastly greater number of white Americans do favor universal equality, irrespective of color or ethnicity. Our theme is that, while it is empirically justifiable, and tautologically, natural, for black Americans to oppose racism, the fight for universal and fundamental acknowledgment of equal rights for black Americans, is most appropriately, and conceivably, most effectively, waged by allied white American citizens. White spectators of prejudiced police brutality, preferential racial policies in employment, the unfair justice system, and, regarding the most fundamental injury to democracy, the attempted hobbling of the [black] vote, must cease in their mere observation and more effectively, advance their enlightened philosophy by effective action: viz., joining in the peaceful protest marches against racism and threats to voting, and by affirmatively speaking and writing in opposition to such un-American and illegal bigotry. Additionally, and very importantly, by overtly demonstrating their sincere feelings of universal brotherhood and social equality, by frequent neighborly style socialization with members of disparate racial and ethnic groups. Picnics, barbeques, vacations, and mutual leisure weekends, taken together, may effectively, far outweigh the most rational and cogent anti-bigotry arguments. Right-thinking white citizens, need to more demonstrably and in outspoken fashion, publicly voice their demands for progress in the universal enjoyment of equity and justice, perhaps sooner accomplished by normalized social interaction, between all citizens.
Such positive and affirmative behaviors would, arguably, serve as reparation by white Americans, for the Nation’s relevant, past wrongs, and additionally, articulate an empathic, meaningful, and symbolic declaration of their derivative atonement for this historical wrongdoing.
-p.
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