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ALPERN AT LARGE - Silly me—I thought that MLK wanted us all to be “race neutral” in how we treated each other!
Silly me—I thought that teaching Ethnic Dermatology” (which for the most part addresses skin conditions in black and other dark-skinned individuals) to my white and non-white dermatology residents 30 years ago would mean that I would be judged as someone other than just “another white male”.
Silly me—I thought that fighting for the Expo Line to bring the then-white Westside, the then-black and the then-Hispanic Mid-City and Eastside together would help bring L.A. past racism 20-25 years ago.
Silly me—I thought that by voting for President Barack Obama in 2008, it would help us drop the whole race-pimping industry dominated by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and let us all move forward together as a nation.
…and so on…I’m just so silly!
Chicago’s getting so used to black and brown shootings, maimings, and slayings under Mayor Lori Lightfoot…that they would throw her out and replace her with an even lighter-on-crime Brandon Johnson...silly me that I was just sick of Libs telling me that Yours Truly was the racist when I would say how awful black/brown deaths were taken for granted!
The southern border of the United States being thrown wide open, with predominantly black and lower income Americans being devastated, and to see N.Y. Mayor Adams and Chicago Mayor Johnson being left in the cold by Joe “Talk to the Hand” Biden…silly me to be so racist as to prioritize Americans of all ethnicities born here from taxpaying families first!
America’s schools and universities screaming that they don’t teach Critical Race Theory, when Intersectionalism and rewriting of actual history just demonizes the same white males who demanded and fought for an America that would ultimately allow the opportunity for everyone to succeed…silly me that I think our children are being indoctrinated into racism!
Our social media and other mainstream media gurus telling us that Cancel Culture phenomenon doesn’t and cannot exist (tell that to the Native Americans!), but yet dragging down East and South Asian Americans down with the White Americans being denied merit-based access to universities and graduate schools…silly me to declare that racism!
Claudine Gay being thrown out as president of Harvard (even while keeping a $900,000/year salary!) because she allowed antisemitism on campus and because she was an up-to-her-eyeballs plagiarist…silly me that I would want her out for any other reason than I was just a racist, and with nothing to do with the fact she happened to be black!
The fury of both the idiotic and cruel ways the police were hurting innocent black and brown Americans…and then the Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police hucksters scoring big money and power with the result of devastating black neighborhoods with crime…silly me that I thought it was racism here, there, and everywhere!
Democratic-run-forever cities with blacks finding ever-less economic opportunities and ever-more reasons to run away from those cities…all the while telling their citizens that somehow the few remaining GOP voters were to blame for the black/brown misery…silly me for thinking it was yet just another form of racism!
But there’s big money in exploiting the race card. After all these decades, we’re about as divided as we were a century ago. Women, Black Americans, Brown Americans, and Asian Americans are “supposed to vote in a certain way”…and that can’t be racist, can it?
Unless it’s not about race, and it’s only about the color Green, as in Greenbacks, and about the power to be wielded by those who declare themselves the most effective warriors against racism when, in actuality, they’re racism’s greatest perpetrators and perpetuators in this post-MLK America.
God Bless America—let’s at least consider, if not recognize, that the race-baiters and the race-obsessed are the truest and most dangerous racists in our modern day society.
Silly me to think that racism can be fought and overall defeated.
But…is such a hope really all that silly? MLK didn’t seem to think so.
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father. He was active for 20 years on the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) as a Board Member focused on Planning and Transportation, and helped lead the grassroots efforts of the Expo Line as well as connecting LAX to MetroRail. His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
