Color Matters

                I was listening to NPR yesterday on my drive home from work and heard a fantastic editorial on the recent assassination attempt of US Representative Gabrielle Giffords.  It raised an interesting point, written and read by a Latino woman, Daisy Hernandez.  She spoke not of the obvious, such as violence, hatred, anger, or the “why/how did this happen” style of discussion; but instead, of how relieved she was that the killer was white, and not Latino.  How true this is.  A sad fact, but a truth nonetheless in these United States.  As quoted by a Mexican character in the 2006 movie Bobby, to another Mexican coworker, “Hey, we’re the new niggers, brother.”  Since that movie was depicting an event that took place in 1968, let us update the context to present day 2011 and add Middle Easterners (aye-rabs) and as not yet a close second, the Chinese (who shall carry the burden of representing the global Asian community in its totality), to the list.  And let us not pretend as though black Americans have transcended this world, for they too are of course, still relegated to this class of subhumans.  As a matter of fact, African-Americans are probably the top of the list, or the bottom, depending on how you want to look at it.

                With the recent hubbub about immigration reform and all of the rhetoric surrounding the “illegals”, the hatemongers would have transformed the events in Tucson, Arizona into a frenzied discourse of singling out a people and fueled the already expansive hatred of “the others” into hyperdrive.  Instead, there is now an attempt to reconcile a hatred that can be packaged neatly into bipartisanship.  Bipartisanship is undoubtedly a major source of contention in the United States, with chasms that increasingly separate and divide its citizens.  However, it is but one facet of hatred that happens to be a convenient focal point, as though it is representative of the problem. 

Hatred has been stewing, brewing, and bred both over the course of the history and origins of this country, as well as more recent advents of having a black president, the fall of the global economy and subsequently, overall US global stature, the lattermost of which had been in the making for some time: it’s just that a majority of Americans were too arrogant, myopic, and self-absorbed to have imagined such a possibility, jerking off to their gas guzzling SUVs and whatever else that afforded the individual a sense of status and power.  Such are the effects of distraction: those non-original thoughts that we welcome into our feeble minds as occupier, in place of the human condition that all too often includes pain and challenges, self-reflection and concerted effort for personal change; precisely the things that make the world real, a little too real for comfort.  Pain is not desired.  Therefore despite it being a part of life, it’s much easier to succumb to products that are available to the masses, which serve as distractions.  Hey, where’s my smart phone?

After decades of imagined prosperity cultivated in a culture of self-absorbed individualism, Americans have largely grown accustomed to feel entitled to whatever they want.  This has produced a people whose gluttony cannot be easily quenched, and a mentality whose worldview is a shortsighted one: immediate personal gratification.   To this day, I doubt many Americans have much an idea of where Iraq is or that Africa is not a country, unless you’re referring to South Africa, which, if that were the case, you would have said, “South Africa”.  As a matter of fact, I once attended a party and met several people (adults, mind you, not when I was six, attending a friend’s seven-year birthday party) who adamantly defended their belief that there are 51 States in the United States of America.  Now at least one of these people I can say was a friend at the time, and I don’t put down the fact that he didn’t know something all American kindergartners typically learn: there are 50 States in these You-knighted States of Amahricah.  Okay, my last sentence could arguably be construed as a put-down, but it proves my point precisely: Americans need not know much and still feel entitled to everything.  The irony goes without saying that this country is based on immigration (imperialism) in the 200+ years of its young existence.  However, give any fresh immigrant lineage a generation, maybe a generation and a half, and presto: the inhabitants will feel content to live within an insular reality, eating fatty-patty burgers and freedom fries, as their arteries clog in ghastly traffic jams of fat.  Hey, so long as you’ve got the next distraction, it’s all cool.  Gimme that Verizon i-Phone, man.  I’ll throw this shitty AT&T i-Phone away!  What?  It’s the same goddamned phone?  I don’t care.  I want Verizon anyway so I can talk to my “friends” about how I have the latest i-Phone.

                I do believe that something positive can be garnered from this tragedy.  It is my genuine hope that this is so.  I am certainly not putting down the President’s speech or the left and right coming together even temporarily, despite it being largely superficial.  On the contrary, any reinforcement of unity is a beautiful thing and I am a cheer leader on the sidelines rooting “Go!  Go!  Go!”  What’s so disappointing is that something so drastic needs to occur for people to realize even for a moment that the anonymous Joe Schmoe that you see every day is an actual human being.  He too has connections and origins, feelings and dreams, pains and hopes.  It’s too damned easy to forget that, and become self-absorbed.  I raise my own hand and will condemn myself: Guilty!  However, I confidently and perhaps unjustly shall claim that my guilt in this area is less egregious than that which I observe in others’ actions and behaviors on a daily basis.  At least I’m willing to acknowledge my guilt and otherwise, openly state that I think most people are stupid.

                It seems to me that the overall political climate in the United States is in an uncomfortable state of flux, where the greater population is beginning to realize that things are starting to go south for not only themselves, but the entire country.  For the US, this is felt perhaps most strongly for White America.  Not all whites, mind you, but those who are threatened by their perceived loss of power.  No doubt, a shift in the racial landscape has begun and is continuing to occur.  White majority in the United States has its days numbered.  This is threatening for many people.  Unfortunately, too many of those threatened have no idea that they aren’t even close to being in power.  However, the perceived association with the powerful few allows such individuals to define themselves and orient their social location, which of course, is but a farce.  So long as the perception exists, the social order can continue, at least for a little longer, into the unforeseeable future.

                When things are going smoothly overall, even a slight bump in the road can be felt, seemingly a big, gaping pothole.  However, when you’re driving on a gravel road full of rocks and bumps, the shift in perception from uneven gravel to a pothole is less noticeable.  Perhaps that is why the rather sudden shift from prosperity to economic woefulness in 2008 has resulted in a vulnerable and fearful public, exacerbating tensions and anger through the anxious reality of personal and national uncertainties.  In times like these, it is all too easy to huddle together with others that are seemingly like-minded, similar, and familiar.  Unfortunately, this results in factions of many groups that cannot relate to each other, as they are independently too busy defining who and what they are by what they are not.  Such an exclusionary tactic can only bring temporary relief, if any.  It is time to embrace the pain, the reality of today’s challenging circumstances, and acknowledge that we need each other, as humans, as people, and work together for a better collective future.  Individualist attitudes that solely benefit a select few isn’t working.  Just look at its results that surround not only you, but everyone who has been affected by selfishness.  Shamefully, that just about includes everyone in this global day and age.