Life Matters, Part 2

The Grand Dragon and High Wizard of the Kaka Klan, a.k.a. Racebaiter-in-Chief DJTrump, says we shouldn't think that all whites are racists.

No, we shouldn't. Not any more than we should think all Blacks are criminals and all Mexicans are rapists and murderers, which he not only believes, but on which he built a political campaign.

As I said in my "True Confessions" post yesterday, I am the product of a racist culture, which I have struggled all my life to cast off, yet I still have to ask myself if I am a racist.

Certainly not in any overt way. Individuals of many ethnicities have passed through my life as teachers, friends, colleagues, students, and lovers. As far as I have been concerned, they are just human beings, period.

At the same time, I occasionally have a twinge of something ugly when I meet certain Black men on the street. I can't consciously say what it is. It's almost as if I perceive an aura of threat. Like Jimmy Carter, who admitted to committing adultery in his heart, I feel I'm committing some kind of hate crime in my subconscious.

These passing encounters are always anonymous. I have no doubt that if I were introduced to the same men socially I wouldn't feel a thing. I can only think what I experience is some nasty thing bubbling up from my early years.

I have been victimized by Blacks, roughed up by white cops, and spat upon by Asians. I hold no grudges about those incidents, and I certainly have developed no racial hatred. I sometimes wonder if it's a generational thing. Perhaps people in Generation X or Z are truly color blind. I certainly hope so.

Our so-called leaders, however, are largely Baby Boomers. I hate sharing a generation with them. It is they who fire up the racists, who have hate in their hearts and who pulled out every dirty trick in the book to scuttle the Obama presidency because they couldn't stand the fact that America had elected a Black president.

It's because of their hatred that we all must understand why Black lives matter.

Tomorrow.


--- Diogenes, Bastille Day, 2020