I've been following the
events in Ferguson,
Missouri, with more than a little interest. For those who don't
know, that is where Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was
shot to death by policeman Darren Wilson several days ago. The Black
community in this country is not amused, to say the least. Most of
us believe that the case of Trayvon
Martin was a miscarriage of justice. It also seems to many of us
that the institutions of “justice” in this country are by now
little more than organs of self-expression for narcissistic,
sociopathic elites. One interesting thing about narcissism is the
need for people who are narcissists to project a grandiose image of
themselves. The other thing is that narcissists need an audience to
reflect that grandiose image back to themselves. Without that
audience, narcissists don't know they exist.
One way to project a
grandiose image on to others is to intimidate and oppress others.
That way, a narcissist can say, “At least I'm better off than this
person whom I am kicking around, this person on whom I project all my
insecurities and inadequacies, this person whom I can use as a
convenient dumping ground for all my hostility.” For a while the
cowboy narcissistic society known as the USA could use the entire
world as a mirror to reflect its grandiosity back to the eyes of the
chief beneficiaries of that grandiosity. And Anglo-Americans didn't
even have to leave the country to find people to kick around – what
with slavery, Jim Crow, separate-but-equal laws, and “institutional,”
covert racism, there were plenty of victims to dominate.
Then something happened –
a critical mass of unrest and unwillingness on the part of the
victims of this oppression to take any more. The unwillingness was
expressed in such a way that the beneficiaries of American privilege
saw that they couldn't continue in their evil ways without risking
the loss of that privilege, and maybe even of anything resembling a
civil society. That, I am sure, was one thing that persuaded the
leaders of American society to lighten up a little.
But now, the privileged
sector of the United States is losing its place in the world, due to
forces beyond its control. This seems to be provoking a
psychological crisis, and some of these people seem to want to roll
back the clock to a time when they could use nonwhite people in this
country as a punching bag/target stop/dumping ground for their
unresolved insecurity and hostility. In their clock-fixing attempts,
they are quite bold. But this shouldn't be happening, should it?
After all, we have a black President!
Yes we do. But over the
last five years, Barack Obama has very obviously proven himself to be
nothing more than the lesser of two evils. By now, when one says,
“the lesser of two evils,” the eyes of his audience usually glaze
over – the phrase has become a cliché. So let me present an
illustration. If a gang of thugs breaks down the door of your house
and tells you that you have a choice between having your teeth
punched down your throat or having your car torched, you have a
choice to make between the lesser of two evils! If we add a few more
evils to choose from, such as having your house burned down, having
your identity stolen, or being sexually assaulted (“raped” in
plainer language), you have the smorgasbord that American politics
has become with our token inclusion of third-party candidates like
Ron and Rand Paul. (Is a choice for Ron a choice to be raped? Is a choice for Rand a choice to drink battery acid?) I voted for Barack Obama twice because I didn't
want my teeth punched down my throat. But I have very little hope
that he will keep my house from being burned down. Obama does
seem quite hot to “protect” people in other countries from not
being raped by the West – even to the point of sending American
bombs, arms and troops where they're not wanted. What evil can you
live with, dear reader?
But to those who want to
roll back the clock, I have just one warning. By trying to make a
clock run backwards, you may wind up breaking the clock. I vividly
remember the overt racist garbage (utter garbage!) I had to put up
with growing up in this country, and the more covert and insidious
attempts to destroy me made by others whom I met in my adulthood.
And why? Because my skin looks different from theirs? What utter
garbage! What did I ever do to these people? Here's my policy: I
want my home and my life to be a clinic of mercy to anyone who needs
it, anyone who walks in the door – red or yellow, black or white.
But here's my warning to the clock-tinkerers: you won't peaceably
roll the clock back on me. I'm not putting up with it again.
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