I’ve always loved maps. Next to my twin bed, I pasted up a map of the world. I was raised in America, the world’s greatest country, and as a child, I couldn’t understand why the greatest country wasn’t larger. Why was Canada so much larger? And the evil empire, which we called the Soviet Union back then, also was larger than the U.S. It seemed so wrong. Over time, history class taught me otherwise. Primarily, the boundaries of sovereign nations had nothing to do with their righteousness and everything to do with military prowess.
In geography class, I learned long ago that the map on the wall was inaccurate. Map makers flattened the Earth and drew perfectly perpendicular longitude and latitude lines. It was a great invention. The map format hanging in my room, developed by Gerardus Mercator in the 16th century, became the international standard. It helped navigators for centuries.
One major problem. It distorted the geography of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, making places like Europe and the United States appear much larger than they were.
Along came the Equal Earth map in 1963. It more accurately represented the world’s geography. It was ignored until this year, when the small African nation of Togo proposed that the U.N. General Assembly adopt it as the new standard. Some 167 countries voted yes. One country voted no. Can you guess which one? Which country’s executive believes he’s connected to the biggest of everything? Which country’s executive said that Africa was comprised of “shit-hole” countries? Which country’s executive has issued executive orders that smell of racism? Which executive has been constantly criticized as being racist? The U.S.
A thought process tainted with racial dislike and distrust is the only explanation for why a U.S. president would not approve a motion that almost the entire known world adopted. In fact, I believe he’s the only person who would believe that the experts in the field are wrong. He has held experts in medicine, AI, climate change, finance, and the military in contempt. After all, he is a smart, high-IQ president. If we presume that he is high-IQ (yes, a major presumption), then there’s only one explanation for the vote. He’s a bigot.
So you say systemic racism does not exist. You might be right. Now, it’s overt.
For a Dignity Deserved 