The Deluge, Part 1: Systemic Racism, Systemic Murder ~ Dying, by the Grace of the Gods...but as yet, Undead

I am a Veteran, which means that I have had the privilege of serving as a Soldier for the only nation in world history whose existence was predicated not on nationality, but on the principle of Freedom.

Please do not feel obliged to offer thanks for my service. America is not perfect, and was never meant to be perfect. America was created in the spirit of acknowledging that mankind is imperfect, and acknowledging the tendency of Power to corrupt. She was, as such, designed as a weapon, via which Freedom Fighters might fight against such Tyranny. To serve in that noblest of possible endeavors, thwarting evil in the name of Freedom, is its own reward, and if you are of the type to express gratitude for such services, you are demonstrably an American Patriot, the very motivation for our Soldiers to serve. It is, therefore, we who thank you, if I may be so bold as to speak for others.

As a Veteran, I have always felt a certain level of simpatico with Cops. Cops, like Soldiers, have, every one'f'm, made a conscious decision to earn their livings by going into Harm's Way to protect the innocent from Evil. Everybody knows: Some Cops are bad. Some Cops are flat out evil.  Every profession has its bad apples. This is statistically inevitable. But I have always felt, and still do, regardless of the events of the last few months, that Cops, while being held, mind you, to lofty standards, deserve every last bit of the benefit of the doubt that everyone else receives.

***

We have come a long way, in a short time.

Not 60 years ago, Racism was the rule, not the exception, throughout Dixie, or so I understand it to've been. Everyone knows about the disgusting, horrific, and unspeakable violence and flat out murder that Black Americans fought their way through in the 1960s, just to get something nominally resembling equitable treatment, from the Crackers whose asses they'd driven out'f Africa, about 250,000 years ago. Some folks can sure carry a grudge, is what I mean to say!

***

Dixie wasn't the only place with Racism going on, though, let us not kid ourselves. I well remember, I'm sorry to say, the condescending "White Man's Burden" attitude toward my Black Brothers and Sisters, that prevailed, in my youth, in New EngLand, in the 1970s. There was, how do I put it, a disgusting arrogance among white men that I knew, insinuating, through winks and nods and generally condescending shades of tone, that Black Americans simply weren't "up to snuff."

They were regarded, among genuine Crackers, as one might regard a shameful relation.

When I write of such things, I think of my Father, I'm sorry to say...But I also hearken back, in my mind, to shades of prejudice and subtle, unspoken, shades of condescension, prevalent in many movies, television programs, advertisements, and other sundry reflections of our society, back then.

It gives me no pleasure to relate these things.

***

I hardly hate America. I worship America. But I can do so because I recognize that Racism is not an American thing, but a loathsome legacy, passed down to us by an accident of history: Slavery, prevalent since ancient times, and having little to do with racism for most of its history, became accidentally racial, in the early modern era, by the convenient surge of European prominence, coincident with the decay of Africa, and the emergence of American colonies.

***

The shameful part, of course, is that so many White Americans, rather than admit that Slavery was an unspeakable horror, a shameful, horrific legacy of a time when men of all nations, black and white, enslaved each other, chose, instead, the path of some sort of twisted denial, insisting, in their horrifying delusion, that White Americans were entitled to enslave Black Americans.

And from that unspeakable delusion spawned the delusion of White Supremacy.

***

Update: Blacks still drove Whites out'f Africa 250,000 years ago. Hah! #JustSayin

***

But we have come a long way. Most of my fellow Crackers have awakened to the simple fact that Black Americans are not only as intrinsically intelligent as us, but, perhaps more importantly, as human as us: Black Americans, White Americans, and Americans of all shades, all have pretty much the same general hopes and dreams, and the same fears. To know a Soul, as the saying goes, is to love them.

That is perhaps my favorite thing about our species: When one comes to recognize another person's humanity, one cannot hate them. One, indeed, cannot help but root for them...and like them.

***

Cops are human, too.

No, seriously. I've done a lot of research on this.

It's true.

***

I would love to imagine that Racism is dead.

And it is dying.

But, dead? I'm afraid not.

This...is Racism.

This is murder.

This...is Racism.

And this...is Murder, in the name of Racism.

And our legally elected representatives supported these murderous scum.

We have a problem.