COMMON SENSE-Battered around and treated like objects--by all forces, and from all sides--the segment of our society who happens to be black must have a hard time figuring out who their friends really are.
The desire "to be black", whether it's talking or rapping or dressing or doing up one's hair has to be one of the most obnoxious, and downright racist, trends our society now endures. There's been no small controversy about the mental illness and political correctness pervading the likes of Rachel Doleza, but she's hardly alone.
As a Jew, if I suddenly saw everyone trying to "act" or "speak" or "dress" Jewish, how could I not be offended? Frankly, the Hollywood/entertainment industry obsession with Kabbalah is pretty darned offensive enough, forgivable only because Hollywood and the music/entertainment industry is replete with some of the most stupid and ignorant individuals on our planet ... thereby giving them a pass when they do something stupid and ignorant.
And didja hear the President used the "N-word"?
As if anyone should care.
I'd like to think that the terms "kike", "wop", "spic" and any other pejorative racist word in public is, for 21st century educated human beings, understood to be rude and inappropriate ways to describe other human beings.
The "discussion about race" will not be resolved by the Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons, Eric Holders, and Barack Obamas of the world ... who have proven themselves to be part of the problem, and are sad disappointments (particularly President Obama, who should have known and done better when he had the chance to show the courage and vision that Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy and Reagan showed).
No more blaxploitation, please. No more exploiting racial issues and divisions for political or economic purposes ... please!
Black Americans are just Americans who happen to have more melanin in their skin than others, and there are many "blacks" who are lighter than some "whites", if those latter groups come from Southern Mediterranean and Eastern Mediterranean origins. I happen to be a dermatologist, but I don't think this is any earth-shattering news to any layperson or any normal, thinking and educated adult.
We just had nine wonderful human beings killed by a madman who thought he could start a civil war.
He even had mixed feelings about it, or so the story goes, because he thought they were so nice.
But he did it anyhow...which meant that this madman alone is responsible. Not President Obama.
Not Sarah Palin. Not the NRA. Not the New Black Panthers or Al Sharpon or Fox News.
And those folks aren't responsible for the small holocaust of black American children in Chicago and other large, "enlightened" American cities...but they sure are all guilty of insufficiently raising the human cry of injustice and lives wasted and cut short in the worst and most cruel of ways.
In Charleston, it was just one evil individual who chose to sink himself below the status of a human being, and deserves to be treated as such. He doesn't even deserve to be named, because that would imply he still merits the consideration of being anything more than a twisted monster who planned an unspeakable action for six months.
Fortunately, South Carolina has a working death penalty policy...or so it's hoped.
No, the answers to "the discussion about race" won't come from those who have political and economic benefits from the prolongation of racial division, but rather the increased numbers of mixed-race families and blended families and extended families and friends with ethnic diversity who recognize this blaxploitation just treats black Americans like objects and not as civilized, intelligent human beings.
Black and non-black humans of all colors can biologically have mixed-ethnicity children who are perfectly healthy and normal. We're all, therefore, of one race. End of debate, and end of discussion.
The answers to "the discussion about race" will be those who hold all human beings to the same high standards and focus on economic and social injustice, and keep melanin levels out of the picture.
And let's start looking not for "red state", "blue state", "white, "black", "Latino", or "Asian" American leaders. Let's just start looking for American leaders.
Human beings that we can all look up to, and who don't exploit past and ongoing racial injustice to ensure its ongoing future.
That sort of racism should have died out last century. Let's start mobilizing and integrating, and let's stop with the exploitation of human beings that is nothing more than stupid malarkey and a waste of all of our time.
Time to throw the legacy of racism, and those who used that issue for their own personal agendas or enrichment, into the museum--both the Confederate Flag, and the racial exploitation, need to be thrown into the dustbin of history.
Time for Common Sense, and not politics or money, to fix this obviously-fixable and eminently-resolvable problem.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected] He also does regular commentary on the Mark Isler Radio Show on AM 870, and co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 51
Pub: Jun 23, 2015
