Thank you for writing, theotherside (click the link or read the comment below). It’s enjoyable reading a cogent challenge to my thoughts.
First, you make a few presumptions. My fault, not yours. I rarely include personal experiences that shape my thoughts.
I have traveled Southeast Asia, China, Latin America, Europe, and most of North America, and I have friends and acquaintances from those regions, as well as the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. They, especially parents and grandparents, share a common goal, wish, ambition, whatever you may call it. They want to leave the world better than they found it, and in almost all cases, they attribute their desire to an ethnic, nationalistic, or religious code.
I find their claims odd. It skips one construct: We’re all human. Contrary to my cranky nature, I believe humanity, shaped by trillions of cells from billions of individuals, elevates us to a higher plane with each generation. Think Gestalt: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or paleontologist/philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s concept in The Phenomenon of Man. Chardin postulates that evolution will converge in a state of unity and consciousness called the Omega Point, which he identifies as the divine union. Not bad for a species that began writing only 5000 years ago.[1]
In either case, the anthropogeny is never quantum. Evolution crawls at the pace of a gastropod. So, advances in a lifetime are minute. Stand back. Take a wider view. You will see that with each passing millennium, we transcend the inadequacies of our past. We should cheer the accomplishment, have a parade, maybe even an arch. (But let us forget cage fights and Formula One races.)
Prejudice[2] debases these wonders. Its foundations are built on distorted notions of ethnicity, religion, or political affiliation. This perversion of noble norms tears at the heart of our shared humanity. It’s not easy to escape. My travels, reading, and experiences have shown that injustice isn’t the spouse of any one group. It’s shared across the Earth. You’ll find it in southern Asia, China, Russia, Africa, Europe, Latin and Southern America, Canada, and yes, the United States. In each region, it feeds on fear, mistrust, and ignorance.
Its commonality doesn’t lessen the pain caused or the danger posed, and for that very reason, we should never forget past injustices, such as your example of the Barbary Pirates. Let’s also not forget the genocide of Jews and other groups by the Nazis, the slaughter of Armenians by the Turks, the needless death and destruction in Gaza and southern Lebanon, the killings of tribal groups in many conflicts in Africa, the Trail of Tears in the United States, the massacre in Greenwood, the destruction of Rosewood, and the list goes on and on and on. These wastes of human life belie our true nature. So, we should never forget that our best angels can fall tarnished by the sins of bigotry and prejudice.
The people of the U.S. stand in a unique position. Sins have been committed. Yet the nation embraces the freedoms laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. It has led the world in granting individual freedoms–the pursuit of happiness, liberty, and justice for all. Over two and a half centuries, it has expanded to include rights for people of all races, genders, religions, and political affiliations. This ideal’s magnetism has drawn people to America’s shores. At our best, our diverse nation has accomplished great feats. The glories of the past are not invitations to rest on our laurels.
Our past achievements and failures don’t define America. They are experiences, testaments to our strengths and frailty. They show us how to pursue our ideals.
Our great experiment in democracy lays before us an abundance of opportunities. It also poses a dilemma, as old as the country itself. Our Founding Fathers worried that the nation’s diversity could portend havoc. Could one group’s beliefs infringe on others’ freedoms? They called it the tyranny of the majority, and the simple answer is yes. Has it happened? Yes, repeatedly over the past 250 years.
Here’s America’s other dilemma: Should we ignore those encroachments on others’ freedom because we have a free society—by law? Or, to put it another way: Should we ignore the law of the land? Either case has never boded well. For example, people changed the law of the land after the Civil War. The U.S. Congress ended Reconstruction before the freedoms for the formerly enslaved were ensured. In the wake of this move, southern states enacted what became known as Jim Crow laws. The Ku Klux Klan roamed the backcountry and terrorized new American citizens. This blatant disregard for the Emancipation Proclamation overshadowed the restrictions on freedom enacted or practiced throughout the North and West. These immoral, often illegal, acts didn’t begin to evaporate until the 1960s. Evaporation doesn’t eliminate the source. The hatred and mistrust took another form. Far more subtle, but equally as insidious. The inhumanity of enslavement, in other words, mutated, creeping into national myths and taking on forms more difficult to discern.
You asked me to look at Morgan Freeman’s thoughts on this subject. I agree with him on several points, especially that of race. It’s an erroneous term with no scientific basis. We continue to use it. Why? I have my thoughts. Yours?
I’m jumping to one of your later points. Why do you generalize about “the left” and me? Do I have friends who are MAGA? Yes. Do I have friends who are “leftists”? Depends on what you mean. Communists? Socialists? No. Democrats? Yes. Do I care if someone is MAGA? No. I also don’t care if someone is a socialist. After all, the U.S. has many heavily subsidized Federal socialist programs, such as Social Security and Medicare.
Most of my friends and acquaintances are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists. The culture, language, religion, or tone of skin makes no group inherently evil. Evil does not emerge from particular beliefs. That’s silly.
Most faiths, for example, universalize empathy and kindness for strangers. It’s called ger in the Jewish tradition.
- The word appears more than 80 times in the Old Testament. It means stranger or sojourner, basically a non-Israelite who has settled in an Israelite community (Exodus 22:21, Leviticus 19:33–34, and Deuteronomy 10:17–19). In each case, God calls for the care, justice, and love of the sojourner.
- In Christianity, it’s the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37). Not to be outdone by Jesus’s two greatest commandments (Matthew 22:37–40 and Mark 12:29–31): “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (see Deuteronomy 6:5), and “love your neighbor as yourself” (see Leviticus 19:18).
- Qur’an 4:36 commands kindness toward both near and distant neighbors, as well as travelers.
- The Buddha and Ānanda find a sick monk lying neglected in his own waste. They wash him and put him into bed; the Buddha then tells the other monks, “Whoever would tend to me, should tend to the sick.” (Vinaya, Mahavagga VIII.26).
- King Rantideva, exhausted by fasting, gives away his food to successive visitors and his last water to a thirsty outcast. (Bhagavata Purana 9.21.3-15).
- Humanists use classic Greek fables to illustrate how we should treat others. These include The Lion and the Mouse, which shows that the overlooked have value and deserve help, and The Fox and the Stork, which illustrates treating others as you wish to be treated.
So, 75 percent of the world adheres to these tales and instructions. That raises an intriguing question: If we should share our food with others, why is it so hard to share rights granted under the law?
Let’s take this a step home—to my home. I am a white grandfather of two Black grandsons. When my sons were born, I didn’t care how they would be seen. That they would be judged based on the color of their skin. That people would assume that they aren’t as intelligent as their friends. That the honors and awards they received were accomplished because of “reverse racism.” That people would slide to the back of an elevator when they walked on. That they would get the same mortgage rate as others. That there wasn’t a DWW (driving while white).
Flip those thoughts to the negative, and that’s precisely what I worried about when I held my grandsons. I feared and continue to fear they will not have the same rights as their father and uncle. For one reason: Their skin has more melanin. Too many will judge them by a different standard, which, in some cases, is not just in violation of their professed religious beliefs, making it immoral. It’s illegal.
I don’t judge others’ behavior. That’s the work of judges, juries, and, eventually, God. That doesn’t change the fact that their bigotry angers me, and it’s about more than advocating for what our founding documents, laws, and religions preach. It’s far more self-centered. I have “skin in the game.” My kin could/will endure what no American should. It’s all that simple.
I also have shame. Not because of my pasty, white skin burns bright red in the summer sun. That’s the “fault” of the genes my parents passed on to me. I am not ashamed that European Americans enslaved some 10 million Africans, all in the name of profit. I am not ashamed of American society’s failures to live up to its national ideals. Those events happened long before I was born. I am ashamed that it took six decades for me to have empathy for the tribulations of millions of parents of color. I am ashamed that I failed to comprehend the shadow of uncertainty or fear that shrouds their dreams.
It’s a failure of everything I believe essential to living a good life. Hence, I write.
Comments (unedited) from “theotherside.”
I’ve been to Germany, Japan, France, UK, Africa, and other countries. America is a picnic, as far as racism goes, compared to those countries. Maybe you should visit other places to see racism in action now. In Germany seeing black guys being kicked and called the N word all over the street in todays world not 60 years ago. It sickened me to see that. So I can’t take this too seriously. I live in the deep south and I saw more racism in one night there than I have in a lifetime here. Is America perfect? Of course not but neither is anywhere else!
Is there racism in the world? Sure, every single place on earth but America doesn’t have the market cornered on that. Unfortunately it exists but it seems like leftists FIND racism (math is racist, being polite is racist, being rich is racist) in places where there isn’t any. Funny, leftists also bitch about racism and hate.. yet they turn around and hate on Christians (white or black), black conservatives, gay conservatives, Jews, Hispanic conservatives, straight people, and of course white people…which yeah I forgot, who are all inherently evil. Right? You mention inclusion but do you mean it? The only inclusion the left seem to want is in the wrapping. Not what is inside the package. What people look like. Nothing about their thoughts. Would you dare include maga or a conservative person in your circle? If not, you are not inclusive. I know leftists and maga…grew up with friends who are both. Does your bubble include both? Mine does.
You bring up in your other posts about slavery which ended LONG ago. It was a terrible thing but it’s over. How about if I bring up the Barbary Pirates? They held 1 million to 1.25 million European Christians as SLAVES. Of course I’m not going to bring that up because no one alive is responsible now! It was terrible as well but it’s over. Remember, some people, including Gays, Blacks, Asians, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and others actually love America and doesn’t think it’s a racist country like you apparently do. America is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and neither is Canada, Mexico, or anywhere else.
Sorry…I took up your time but it gets tiring, all the hate and how America is rotten yet the immigrants who did it the right way, many are super happy here. The past is not perfect but it’s the past. Ever hear of Morgan Freeman? Look up is quote on racism.
[1] This same species lived for millions of years before organized religion, nations, or even the concept of race formed.
[2] It’s an attribute of only one species, homo sapiens.
