Racism is going to continue in the US for a long time to come

Dec 28, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
What goes around comes around. The United States of America has never quite been able to extricate its self from the iniquity of racism. Upon close examination of what is happening now it seems as if its roots have been more firmly implanted and spreading new shoots. I maintain that that building was not named White House by accident. On the contrary, it was a rather resolute and expressed act. If this just concluded election didn’t remind some and brought home this message to others then they are lost or whipped folks as Black Americans would say.
I think in some ways the democrats themselves contributed to, though some may argue unwittingly and may very well have a point, for why else would they knowingly craft their own defeat!?
US racism is reaching for the sky; in fact it has never left the shores of the great USA and has always had a stranglehold on the nation. But this is not the first time this has occurred, and will sure continue to play out for there are as we know inherent contradictions within its socio-economic system primarily responsible for many imbalances from which spring those constant antagonistic social behavior and which are stubbornly and falsely defended and promoted, even in the light that many have awaken to the harsh reality that the “American Dream” is peppered with nightmares.
I have further concluded that it wasn’t fashioned/designed for the sake and glory of every soul, in fact with every passing day too many hardworking everyday people are finding its credo “all men are created equal” nothing more than a “fleeting illusion”. I recall one Robert Goldston who a long time back examined the state of economic exploitation that developed and was imposed on poor Southern white farmers/working class by the rich ruling class that had a severely wretched impact on them. So devastating it was that they became bitter with themselves for their poor lot. As Goldston pointed out, self-hatred, self-contempt is the very foundation for hatred of others, and the Negro was the most apparent and fitting object of hate.
Thus he reasoned further; “when the foundation of externalized hatred carefully nurtured fears were piled; the fear that the blackman is the cause for them being unemployed, impoverished and a struggling life, a strange phenomenon was created”. The majority of poor whites were turned into the most violent advocates of slavery – the very system which kept them in poverty. What a contradiction! Coming closer, a similar scenario played out some years before the period of the great depression in the 1930s when poor working class whites were fed the propaganda that – negroes were the ones stealing their jobs, making them unemployed.
This led to Negroes not being hired; further, those who were employed in the fields and on the railways were laid off, even the menial jobs they had were taken away. Years later when the depression came causing massive loss of jobs, putting poor whites in the swelling unemployment lines, they were forced to face a stubborn reality that begs the question; who’s to blame for their condition now? Blacks were long jobless – nowhere employed.
Today in 2016 USA there are parallels. Folks of colour who were dealing with this troubling issue of American racism in a superficial way almost forgot the fact that it has been an undercurrent, dormant but simmering. Indeed the “Reality Show” man has awoken those in slumber to the reality that racism in the USA is alive and well. When Trump intoned; “we are going to make America great again…we are going to bring back the jobs that were taken away from our people”, go figure, these are all familiar statements of terrible times used in the past. As for me I say that racism in the US will not disappear until the philosophy that governs her existence within the scheme of things are so designed and crafted in every facet so it can benefit of all her people, and this though not impossible is a mighty tall order that may not be witnessed in the foreseeable future.
Frank Fyffe

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