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..Liberty And Justice For All... [1]

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Date: 2022-10-16

The Mayflower Compact

..WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FORALL..

Six such powerful, enlightened, noble, aspirational, comforting and promising sounding words. To so many hundreds of millions of poor, tired and huddled masses over the last 235 years. Revered by so, so many as THEE symbol of all that we have ever aspired to be as a nation. Yet thus far, at the exact same time, and from the still ongoing perspectives of the tens of millions of people who've been very, very intentionally and methodically excluded, and/or perpetually relegated to the very bottom of the social and economic totem pole for the last 500 years, they represent something very, very different indeed. After the last five centuries, those very same words are instead viewed by tens of millions of those deemed “others” as symbols of some of the most hypocritical and self-incriminating words in human history. And in the immortal words of Lincoln (and some carpenter guy in the ancient Middle East), “A house divided cannot stand.”

And now, come November 8th, as a direct result of it's original foundational flaws, this nation stands on the very precipice of this grand, historically revolutionary, and yes, very, very foundationally flawed social experiment being ended, once and for all, by an insatiable hunger for racial segregation, white supremacy and (perpetually overlooked) unequal justice. So despite America's supposed Enlightened roots, nonetheless, it's now on the very verge of being potentially declared a heartbreaking (if not, inevitable) failure by future historians. Primarily as a result of more and more desperately embracing injustice (and corruption), in the service of retaining white wealth and power.

But, even at this very late date, is there some sort of way to pump the water out and right this ship before it's too late??? The answer is yes. In fact, the answer is even very, very simple. “Emperor's New Clothes”-type simple. But nonetheless, that doesn't make it anywhere close to easy. To either accept or to do.

First, let's do a quick refresher of some of the most infamous of the many, many millions of acts of downright sadistic inhumanity and injustice that have happened to those deemed nonwhite, while we nonetheless loudly professed“...liberty and justice for all...”. Starting with the most obvious. Native American genocide. Smallpox blankets. Chattel slavery. The conditions inside slave ships, period. Immigration quotas. Brutal pre and post-slavery attacks on Asian railroad workers. Thousands of post-slavery mob attacks and lynchings of Blacks. Secret and involuntary sterilizations and other medical experiments (primarily on nonwhites). The Tuskegee Experiment being the most infamous. Japanese Americans forced into Concentration camps during WWII. Redlining. The original creation of the welfare and the GI Bills effectively excluding nonwhites. The “War On Drugs”. The Southern Strategy. Virtually ALL “Tough On Crime” initiatives. The brutal violence inflicted on the otherwise peaceful Civil Right Movement. J Edgar Hoover (a virtual lifetime of racilized injustice). Central and South America babies and toddlers taken from their families and placed in urine and feces infested cages. And much, much more.

Now...here's the method to my madness.

If you identify yourself as white, all these hideous things were done for you (even if they happened long before you were ever born). And more importantly, they were all done implicitly IN YOUR NAME, as a fellow so-called white person. Because that's the very essence of how institutional white supremacy was designed to work. All for one, and one for all. In other words, unless one is ACTIVELY working to make it clear that they renounce and are against the “club”, you are automatically considered a legacy member of the club at all times anyway. No exceptions. Ever. Pick any or all of the examples that I listed. And it is as if there was a tiny brass name tag left there with your name on it.

Theoretically at least...now you know not just what's happening, but also what's been happening the entire time...in your name!!! Regardless of whether you wanted it to or not!

So it is no longer enough to silently sit back and not know about the tens of millions of racialized horrors happening in this country of “liberty and justice for all”. Unless you are either actively working to oppose those horrors, or else actively making it known that you no longer wish to be a lifetime legacy member in the “club of whiteness”, your name tag continues being invisibly used as part of the list of legacy white people who they believe (silently) want the brutality to continue. Your name is essentially included by default, unless you actively make it clear that you do not wish to be credited with what they're doing...because of your whiteness. Straddling the fence (or pleading ignorance) has never actually ever been an option.

And THAT is the simple (but not easy!) solution to how we right the ship. A wide enough cross-section of so-called white Americans must finally actively decide that they want their names removed from the invisible rolls of people doing such things (in their names)...at a minimum. And ideally, actively campaigning for the injustice and violence to stop altogether. Simply because the injustice and corruption are wrong...and it's now advanced to a stage where it's silently on the verge of destroying all of us! Time is very, very short to decide!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/16/2129287/--Liberty-And-Justice-For-All

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