The police shootings of 2 Black men in
the US cities of Louisiana and Minnesota are grim reminders of the
consequences of losing the never-ending race against racism in the most
developed and, arguably, most civilized modern human society. In a direct
response, a black
sniper-shooter killed 5 white police officers in another distant city of Dallas in
Texas.
In the weeks following Louisiana, Minnesota and Dallas,
the US race against racism veered off its future destiny of true freedom and
equality to run forward towards her bigoted Jim Crow past.
White American racism against Blacks
in particular was thoroughly cooked and boiled in the living hells of her past
institution of chattel slavery from 1619 to the 1865
Presidential Emancipation Proclamation that freed more than 3 million Black
slaves, lasting about 246 years. Their freedom is followed by more than 150
years of systematic and continuous social discrimination and exclusion, as
manifested lately by the Louisiana, Minnesota and Dallas killings.
To be fair, American race relations have in fact improved significantly
since the 1960s. Many Black Americans indeed have moved up the social mobility
ladder through education and achieve prosperous careers as entertainers,
doctors, lawyers, accountants, businessmen, politicians, professioals …
etc. A Black President in the White
House for 2 terms should have convinced Black Americans of the abundance in
life and social opportunities awaiting them that they have access to. For many
Black Americans, these are simply not enough.
Black Americans at 13%
is the largest racial minority, compared with 77% of racial majority
Whites Americans. Hispanic and Latino Americans together amount to 17% of
the population, making up
the largest ethnic minority. Asian Americans at 5.6% are at a far distance, but
more than the 1.2% Native Americans.
Many Black Americans believe that they
are singled out for systematic discrimination by social institutions and by the
law-and–order systems. Their proportion
in prison far exceeds their proportion in over 20 states. On the whole, they made up 35% of jail
inmates and 37% of prison inmates.
Another study concluded that at the time of his birth, a Black American
has a 33% chance of going to prison during his life-time.
Black Americans appeared
to be trapped and languishing in their own self-perception of a persecuted
people who were freed from plantation slavery just to be quickly enslaved by
the larger White society. Poverty,
unemployment and incarceration reinforced inherently low self-image and
perceived lack of economic progress when compared with other better-off
non-White Americans eg Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Hispanics and Latinos,
many of whom were recent immigrants only in the last 30 years.
No wonder White Americans’ stereotypes
of Black Americans are reinforced concerning the capability and suitability of
the Black man to live and work in the civilized and modern American society of
law. This sad state of mutual
misunderstanding affects and retards any significant progress in their race
relations, and can be attributed to the absence of visionary and courageous
leadership in the President, both Houses of Congress, Community and Social
Leaders, Black and White Influencers and Business Leaders.
Leadership failure by both Black and
White leaders is culpable and responsible for the American race against racism
taking off on a momentum with racism in the lead far, far ahead.
Know that American
society was created with white racism. The earliest white God-fearing
Christian settlers in the New World deployed racism as their weapon of choice,
alongside firearms, to expropriate Native American Indians of their legacy
ancestral lands as a matter of their self-assumed divine entitlement in order
to create their own colonies.
Early American colonies have a disdain
for non-White immigrants who were not from countries like England, Ireland,
France, Holland and Sweden. That racism
was nurtured and systematically developed by the early and subsequent colonies
is baffling since they had migrated to the dangerous New World to escape
religious persecution and social ostracism.
The
Chinese who first came to America in 1850s in search of gold and silver fortunes
and who later helped built the Great American Railroads, like other non-White
settlers, also encountered systemic White racism in the forms of legal and
extralegal discrimination in daily living. Considered “the dregs of Asia”, they
were prohibited from public schools, from voting, from citizenship and from
testifying in courts or legal access. They were instead however legally liable
to pay school, property, water, hospital taxes as well as a “permission tax”
for gold and silver mining activities.
The
Chinese were only allowed US citizenship in 1943. It is not until the 1965 Voting Rights Act which banned
discrimination against voters belonging to language minority groups and
provided critically important protections to these and other minority
Americans.
We should regard the USA as becoming a young modern
democracy only in 1965 using the universal franchise measure for a modern
democracy.
Racism has neither a white or back
face. Racism is an evil that has neither
colour nor face. Racism is learnt. We learn it from our parents. We teach it to
our children. The motivation to teach
racism to our children arises out of our own fear. We fear what we do not understand what or
whom looks different from us. Our
natural reaction to the irritating uncomfortable fear is to retaliate, to
defend, to eliminate and to remove the source of the discomfort by causing pain
and possibly its death. Racism counters such
fears by concealing these fears.
Racism feeds on a dangerous diet of
contaminant ideas and lies regarding race and racial superiority, and regarding
the inferiority of other races along various dimensions. Read for example, the Malaysian
Myth of the lazy Malay and the divisive bogus notion of Chinese
privilege in racially harmonious Singapore.
The race against racism is long and
never-ending. We need to conquer the
lingering racism in ourselves. Some may
believe that we cannot live without racism; for sure, we cannot live within it. To win the race against racism, we have to
first conquer ourselves (quoting Chinese philosopher Lau Tzu).
Yes, it is OK to ignore the things we
disagree and focus on those we do, especially that which unite us. Social
harmony does not require consensus or standardisation or assimilation. Harmonious
co-existence in race relations needs only the respectful tolerance of
differences without discrimination or recrimination. A strong united
community can embrace diversities of practice and opinions to allow the
innovations of thought and ideas to make for a better future society.
After Dallas, can
America run and stay increasingly way ahead in her race against racism? Only her
readiness in truly acting out these responsibilities can begin the end of the
long, long race against racism. Over these recent weeks, Americans know now
that the mega-thon race against racism is far from slowing down … or over.
Read the Full Article:
The Never-Ending Race Against Racism: American Update