American Thinker
October 14, 2009
By Robin of Berkeley
I grew up in a small city in the New York suburbs. My parents scrimped and saved to give us a saner life than in the Bronx.
Unlike most other towns in the county, our area was diverse, with a wealthy population in opulent estates; a middle class group (mine); and a large, low income population, mostly comprised of black residents.
In the 60's, liberal policy makers conceived of forced busing so that deprived kids could enjoy tonier surroundings. The utopians envisioned the dazzling spectacle of ethnic bonding.
At my elementary school, the black kids arrived each day by bus while whites walked or rode bikes. When the kids exited the bus, they looked scared to death, dazed into silence. Walking into school together must have felt like a walk of shame.
Notwithstanding the Kumbaya vision of the races mixing and matching, we each stayed in our racial groups. The only girl I remember is Sheila Smith, the lone black girl in my class. She wore crisply ironed dresses, her wavy hair adorned with pretty bows and clips.
I was a sensitive and observant child. I recall gazing into Sheila's eyes and witnessing a fright I'd never witnessed before. Sitting in the back of the class, Sheila was mute the entire year.
Several elementary schools converged together in middle school. That's when all hell broke loose. Reunited, hordes of black kids charged defiantly down the hallways, mowing down anyone who got in their way.
They had suffered horribly through those lonely, humiliating, seven years. And now it was time for revenge.
Sheila Smith let her hair thicken into a wild afro and became one of the meanest girls. I averted my eyes when I saw her because her furious visage frightened me.
Middle school was like living in a war zone. The white kids were called every name in the book. There were few of us who weren't assaulted, knifed, robbed, molested on a regular basis. I developed physical problems for fear of using the bathroom, where many of the attacks happened.
In retrospect I wish I had told an adult -- my parents or someone at school. But when you're a small child in a Sarajevo-like environment, you keep your head down and your mouth shut.
It's unlikely, anyway, that the adults would have acted. My parents were preoccupied with their busy social life.
Plus, these were the days before private schools proliferated, and my Jewish parents weren't about to send me to the local Catholic school. I imagine my teachers were as petrified as we were, just trying to get through the day in one piece.
After middle school, all the teens in our city merged into the one, mammoth high school, which became a veritable madhouse. Luckily by then I was so zoned out on pot and pills that I was less aware of the anarchy.
I did know to never, ever go to school on the last day of classes since this was when the white kids were beaten up and thrown in the small ponds encircling school grounds.
In my six years of middle and high schools, I never once attended a club, a dance, a meeting, or any other after school activity. My best friend Jean and I would hightail it out of there as soon as the last bell rang.
You might think my school experience is unusual. Sadly, it's not. Innumerable people attended schools that were racial minefields.
It wasn't the black or the white kids' fault. High minded liberals were culpable for hatching up grand plans without an iota of thought about how it would play out in real time: that if you create a nightmare situation for black children by removing them from their neighborhood and their friends, you traumatize them. And if you then turn them loose and give them carte blanche, some will be out for blood.
Forced busing ended years ago in most places. But over the decades, liberals have concocted new plans, and subjected later generations to fresh trauma.
Meet Julie, age 24, a survivor of public schools in Boston. She now has such severe anxiety that she cuts her arms to relieve the tension.
What did she learn at school? Blame Whitey.
Every day she was shoved and cursed at and threatened. She knew that if she complained, she'd be labeled a racist. Then she'd be like raw meat to vultures.
The lack of any voice, any way of defending herself, damaged her as much as the punches. Now, she continually puts herself in harm's way by being unable to say no.
Or take Joe, a local boy, now 20 and struggling to get through college, given his psychological problems and learning gaps. He attended one of our many leftist indoctrination camps (i.e., Bay Area urban public schools).
Being one of the few white kids, Joe had two choices: keeping his nose to the grindstone and being jumped every other day; or joining a gang, which is what he did.
But being from a moral, caring family, Joe is now wracked with guilt about what he did -- burglaries, robberies, slashing tires, hurting innocent people. He also has post traumatic stress disorder after two of his friends were killed for wearing the wrong color.
I could go on and on. I could tell you about Rose, a 24 year old survivor of local public schools, who can read Ebonics but not Shakespeare. She told me about Slave Days, where the white kids played the slaves and the blacks the masters.
And it's not just the white kids who can be terrorized. Studious kids of color are often threatened and jumped if they won't join in on the barbarity.
Given the brainwashing of several generations, did millions of whites vote for Obama out of white guilt? Yes, but it runs deeper than this.
What's happening is not just white guilt, but white shame. Shame is a much more devastating emotion.
We feel guilty about an action, for instance, cheating on taxes or spouses. Shame makes us feel bad about who we are, as though something is wrong with us.
To understand how people can shame each other, I want to introduce you to a defense mechanism, called projective identification. PI is different than projection, and it tends to be utilized by the more troubled among us. When someone feels crappy about themselves, they transmit it to someone else.
PI is like a hot potato. The other person takes their bad feelings and dumps it directly on your lap. They walk away free and easy, while you feel crummy.
That is what happened with Julie, Joe, and Rose. They were dumped on so often by so many that they absorbed the shame and started detesting themselves.
Interestingly, Obama, in one of his autobiographies, reports being intrigued by Malcolm X's statement that, as a biracial man, he despised his whiteness; that he wished there was some way that he could excise his white blood.
Now we have millions of whites who are ashamed of their white blood. Coincidence?
Along with white guilt and shame, there's another reason why whites flocked to a leader with no experience in leading: white fear. While many liberals reside in safe towns, still there's always a threat.
Turn on the 6 o'clock news and hear about the latest cop murder or mob rampage. Rodney King riots in LA, the mayhem in Oakland, murdered police officers. Then listen to reportage that blames the victims.
Thuggery is celebrated. Bad guys are hecka cool; the innocents stupid and naive. Write a rap song about beating up a whore and killing a cop, and win a Grammy.
Think I'm exaggerating? If there isn't an atmosphere of racial fear, why did people threaten a race war if Obama lost? Why are dissenters tarred with the vile label of racist? (Translation: pure evil)
Many liberals voted for Obama in the hopes that all would be forgiven. That if whites handed over some power, finally we can move on and get along. We'll be safe.
Had someone like General Colin Powell or former Congressman Harold Ford Jr. been elected, we probably would not have a foreboding, fearful atmosphere. Though they lean left, both men are patriotic, experienced leaders who may have facilitated racial healing.
Ironically, White America envisioned forgiveness, a letting go of old wounds. Instead we have emboldened people obsessed with evil deeds carried out by citizens long dead.
And not only whites are affected by the hostile environment. The vast majority of Blacks are law abiding citizens, and they are preyed upon in disproportionate numbers.
Philosopher Ayn Rand warned us decades ago of the dangers we were in for by playing racial politics. Her words from 40 years ago sound prophetic:
Whenever a country's criminal laws are more lenient than its civil laws, it means the country is accepting the basic principle of statism and is moving toward totalitarianism. . .What about the rights and liberties of the honest, the educated, the self-supporting, the majority? . . .
The altruists are now. . . struggling to induce racial guilt -- by proclaiming that people must suffer and pay for the (alleged) sins of their father.
There is no such thing as collective guilt. . This country has no guilt to atone for in regard to its black citizens. Slavery was an enormous evil. But a country that fought a civil war to abolish slavery has atoned for it.
How can an individual be held responsible for the views of others, whom he has no power to control? What can make him responsible for them? The answer we hear is: The fact that his skin is of the same color as theirs.
If this is not an obliteration of morality, of intellectual integrity, of individual rights, of the freedom of man's mind, of the First Amendment, you take it from here; I can't -- it turns my stomach."
Yes it's stomach turning to pit racial and ethnic groups against each other; to make children hate themselves; to disregard people's character and behavior.
Black is beautiful. But so is white, and brown, and yellow, and every color under the rainbow because we are all part of the Divine; we are vibrant threads in a larger tapestry.
I asked Rose what she would like people to know about her school experience. An exceptionally bright and kind young woman, she struggles to overcome the legacy of l3 years in urban public schools.
Her poignant words remind us that children should never be used as political footballs or for experiments in social engineering.
This is what she said:
"I learned early on that white people were bad. Since I'm white, I've always hated myself. I was told from grade school on how bad white people were; how we scalped Indians and whipped slaves. I always thought black people were better than me. It's no wonder -- I was told this in one form or another every day.
I was made fun of at school and threatened and pushed around, but I never spoke up. I thought it was my fault, my punishment for being white.
Raising kids this way is wrong. It's wrong to teach white children to hate themselves. It's wrong to teach any child to hate herself. No one should have to put up with abuse because of the color of his or her skin.
It shouldn't have happened."
No, Rose, it shouldn't have.
No comments:
Post a Comment