It can’t be said any plainer than this:
many Americans privately believe that black skinned people are not really human beings. That’s the unspoken, core belief behind separatist attitudes.
That is the fiery sword of racism.
Very few wave the sword openly, but many Americans keep it on their belt. By their actions you will know them.
Not quite the real, complete, white human species. Not ‘our kind.’ Not in the final, final sense of having children with someone whose skin is dark, or accepting a transfusion of their blood to save your life, or spending eternity with them in heaven.
Ask the church ladies, all saved and sassy on a Sunday morning. None of Those Things is going to happen! Not in Our Family! They’ll tell you that straight up, from Boston to San Diego.
The nub of it is that they see a separate species. You can have three eyes or six fingers or webbed feet or black skin, any of the above. You are not quite human if you do.
Ever so close to human, sure. Walk, talk, work and spend money like a human, sure. But the guy who comes in second in a NASCAR race well, he’s not quite number one now either — is he?
That’s the sharp edge of the sword. The belief that whites and blacks are separate species demands an instant decision as to which is superior. Well, what do you know? The Bible and Mein Kampf both say whites are better, if you read them rightly. Luck of the draw, eh?
Since we all have to get on with our day, we accommodate and work around this sword-carrying chunk of our population, but that just means the attitude spreads everywhere, like seasoning in soup.
We fought the Civil War over it. We fought the civil rights movement over it. We impoverish, undereducate, jail or shoot most of our young black men over it. We aren’t over it.
Some people carry all kinds of swords on their belt. Women aren’t fully human; they are the weaker vessel. Children are property, not independent human beings. Poor people are morally deficient and in need of supervision or punishment. Muslims are demons let loose upon the Earth. Non-Christians are going to hell. People who don’t speak English are slow-witted.
The scabbard for every sword is separatism, segregation. Keep the women in the kitchen and out of the Board room. Keep the blacks and Hispanics working with their hands. Keep the Jews away from my children. Keep the unsaved away from me. The more segregation that goes on, the sharper and shinier the sword stays, and the more the white male wins, and keeps, while we get on with our day.
A great deal of this is economics and tribalism — keep the Other away from me and mine. A great deal of this is sexism, and ism after ism; find a difference and exploit it.
But, behind all segregation is fear. Fear of loss or harm is why people carry swords. To ask if racism and sexism and the like will ever go away is to ask if fear will ever go away.
No, it won’t. But to live in fear? In response and reaction to fear? To order our lives around avoidance of the Other? To live in smaller and tighter and less frightening circles?
That’s cowardice. That’s slow death. That’s medieval thinking. Walled-in castles, gated communities, and knights in blue squad cars to protect us and ours. That’s intellectual and moral and spiritual and sensory starvation. That’s the death of the nation.
Did America ever stand higher than this? Was there ever a shining city on a hill, or will there ever be?
No. From the first words of our Declaration to this living moment, America has been about being free to get and hold on to money and property. The original phrase was Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Monies, but they found a euphemism for that final term.
To this day, pursuit of monies trumps racism, sexism, and religious beliefs on a daily basis, everywhere between our shining seas. Few Klan members have ever refused to do business with blacks, or anyone else with green in their hand. In America, people put their sword away when they need to hold their purse.
But it’s temporary, because making money doesn’t erase that core belief that there is more than one human species. That infection can only be removed from our populace by sunshine.
To shy away from that core belief, to live in fear of calling it what it is — is cowardice also.
It is not a preference, not an attitude, not a set of lifestyle choices. All of those stem from what it really is — a core belief in separate species. That’s a bit of ignorance that we cannot afford to live with. That’s white supremacy in effect, and apartheid in practice. That’s a black and white choice that we cannot allow to be called a grey area.
Call it out in the open; ridicule it, outlaw it, educate against it, and apply sanctions against it — legal and social and economic. Call it out into the sunlight, and kill it.
When we cede the nightime to racists, they come by night to build walls around us all.
