I posted a comment, "The brakes on your car fail from time to time but the other parts are working fine. Your kid has this habit of killing neighbourhood animals but other than that he's fine. Your blood sugar is 600, but you're healthy as a horse otherwise. Why choose to concentrate on the bad stuff?" Am I doing this positivity thing right?
Here's what can happen if even ONE person (if she's white) is assaulted (allegedly) by another person (if he's black). Anybody ever heard of this? People in TULSA haven't heard of this. That makes a strong point on its own! Dick Rowland, a black shoeshiner, was accused of assaulting Sarah Page, a white elevator operator. He was 19, she was 17. Do you suppose that 99 years ago there were no people telling the angry, white mob that trashed Black Wall Street, "Hey, why choose to see this one boy? Look at the thousands of other GOOD black people around here!"?
Here's another look at the story.
In the end, Sarah Page did not wish to prosecute. Dick Rowland wasn't caught on camera kneeling on Page's neck. He was believed to have tripped and grabbed Page's arm to stop himself from falling. As shaky as that sounds, why did Page, who must have been under tremendous pressure to do so, NOT prosecute? Whatever the true story may be, this account of black on white assault ended in 800 injuries, 35 confirmed deaths (but possibly as many as 150), 1256 residences destroyed and 35 city blocks burned to the ground. There were refugees, shootings, even bombings from private planes! The protests we are seeing now have sometimes been described as "war zones" but back in 1921, Tulsa WAS a war zone.
And who remembers this literal war? Not many. This brings up the subject of history whitewashing. There are many stories hitting the media these days about relics of the past that are rooted in racism. The "Black Lives Matter" protests ARE changing things. My favourite couple of examples is Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben. Here's an article on Aunt Jemima that is very interesting. The photos, like her image on the syrup bottle, were removed because they could be considered offensive by some. These brand names were, " built on a racial and cultural stereotype that is widely regarded as offensive," says this article. I didn't think I was offending anyone when, as a kid, I ate pancakes with my second favourite maple syrup on them (Log Cabin was my fave), or when I ate Uncle Ben's rice or even when I dressed up as Aunt Jemima for Halloween. But I was. I didn't think I was offending anyone when I picked sports teams as a kid with the "Eenie meenie miny moe, catch a nigger by the toe," rhyme either. But I was. Calling brazil nuts "nigger toes," eating the licorice candy black babies, calling any brown skinned person a "Paki," these were all things we did IN CANADA when I was a kid less than 50 years ago! So I don't want to hear anybody saying that we in Canada don't need to educate ourselves about the past and learn from it. I was ignorant. I had no idea where those words I was saying and food I was eating came from. Now I can understand the connotations of inequality, oppression and violence they are charged with. While I don't necessarily believe we should erase all the items that have such connotations, I accept such actions as attempts to fight the inequality, oppression and violence that could be present now and in our futures.
While we're on Canada, I'd like to post a link to a good example, but I can't. It's blocked on my internet here in Korea. I can only view the story if I turn on my VPN. I won't even start in on whitewashing history from a Korean perspective because that would be a MUCH longer post than this. The article I'd like to post, but can't be viewed here in Korea for some inexplicable reason, is an opinion article written by an Inuit Canadian about a statue of John A. Macdonald on Prince Edward Island. He says folks are talking about removing the statue with Macdonald on a bench, because he was terribly racist against natives. He was our first PM and was instrumental in passing the horrible "Indian Act of Canada." But the author says, "Why take it away? Keep it up to remind us of our racist past so we can learn from it." I see his point.
I also see the points of people who say some statues honouring slavery and racism should be taken down. As this article suggests, it's just silly to say history is being removed. Maybe putting a statue of Dick Rowland or Breonna Taylor beside it might be better? Hard to say.
Since I can't post that article about Macdonald's statue I mentioned above, here's one about the same topic. I post it because it is a clear link between Canada and the US in learning from our histories where this aggression of white police on black perps originated. Note the chalk on the sidewalk. The creation of police forces to keep indigenous Canadians and to keep black slaves "under control" in our respective countries of Canada and the US, makes me a little more educated and allows me to understand the division that was fostered by politicians, and enforced by police, based on skin colour, from the very beginnings of politics in our countries. I see it as something we DO need to be reminded of and a LOT of us don't know.
I support "Black Lives Matter" protests. But as usual, I think I crave MORE! I am excited to see the people becoming hostile but wish that hostility were increases and focused more efficiently. The pitchforks and torches could be black people and white people or indigenous people and white people. In the cartoon it could be guns and knives. The manufactured division is all that concerns the king. The police aren't even in the cartoon. The "Black Lives Matter" protests haven't reached far beyond the police forces just yet, though I have hope for them. The political leader is the ginger with the salad bowl hairdo and the king, the person against whom I dearly wish the whole world would launch full scale violent protests, who is he? He represents a very small group of people, a secret empire, or monarchy if you will, that, as yet, remains unaffected by its plebeian, riff raff chattel. Us. The owned. The livestock that keep them kings. In this respect, which is impossible to prove, hence the term SECRET empire, NO lives really matter. We are a bit unequally inconsequential, but that really shouldn't matter. We're ALL inconsequential consumers and workers. We're dollar signs to our owners.
But who the hell are they, this secret, global empire? I'd like to know too! You've seen this before but it bears repeating:
The secret empire.
In this little cartoon, the huge corporations of the world are blamed, most of them American and most of their logos are as recognizable as our own faces. But have we ever seen the faces of these corporations? The loans are arranged at the World Bank, or its sisters (IMF) but who are the people who operate the source of all the world's money? Has anyone seen them? Of course not! If we knew what they are doing, we'd lynch them! So in this way, the above cartoon is a bit inaccurate. Those "kings" would never show their faces to the angry mobs of scum they own. Us.
The secret "kings" in this video are referred to as "a few very wealthy people."
This one is long, but well worth it.
It says the animation is funny, but I'm not laughing. While watching this, it's hard not to think, "Conspiracy!" Go with that thinking because it IS a conspiracy! One that the last US president to ever oppose it probably lost his life over. JFK called it a "monolithic and ruthless conspiracy."
In the vid, Thomas Jefferson says that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." The tyrants are the very few wealthy people. The only ones who benefit from the unsustainable world economy we have right now.
Some of us feel comfortable. The "At least" justifiers. At least I have a home and a good salary and blah blah blah. "Those who would sacrifice freedom for comfort deserve neither." Why is anybody satisfied with the least? Because we've been slowly conditioned to be. Like frogs being boiled alive in pots. When I watch "Black Lives Matter" protests, I see frogs waking from their psychosocialized stupors and saying, "WT ribbit F? This water is hot!" and jumping out of the pot to attack the sons of bitches who are boiling them. The attacks, at the moment, are admittedly on the lesser sons of bitches, but they could eventually lead to a battle like the one at the end of this cartoon.
I hope I see it in my lifetime, but have my doubts. I hope we win. I KNOW we can! Our owners know we can too! Why do you think military and police forces are so well armed? Not for the minor protests we are seeing now, but for the ones they lead to. I say bring 'em on! Then maybe someday we'll be able to say, "some lives matter," then a bit later, "most lives matter," then finally, "our lives matter."
Keep protesting and keep educating. We'll get there! Our true enemies are a handful of people. Probably less than .001% and they'd love it if we maintained the mindset of the initial meme. I hope we're not that weak-minded.
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