The real reason for racism.

We stand in a crossroads, a crux point, where every move has consequences that trip us further down paths out of our control, yet we must move. We see hatred and intolerance everywhere we look, and there seems no end to it. We talk about how we must control x, y, or z, then complain about how our lives grow emptier of value, bereft of purpose, and how we've lost our way in an uncaring world.

We talk about how this group or that group ought to be restrained in the interests of the greater good, but too often we mean 'because they aren't like me'. We talk about limiting people's rights to speak about religion, about politics, because it offends us, but it really boils down to 'because they aren't like me'. But each time we limit a class of persons, we're actually accomplishing nothing toward the works of preserving our own ideals, our own liberties, and the perceived threat of others voting away our rights, our powers, our liberties, becomes far more possible.

For liberty is a living being. When we weaken her, abuse her, she becomes more vulnerable to abuse. When we cut her, she grows weaker, when we sever one part from another, eventually unrecognizeable.

The tools to weaken liberty were set out in many works... from the 'more equal than others' part in Animal Farm, to the discussions of the ubermensch of Hitler. Any time any portion is judged wiser, more capable, more knowing, better, the other will be viewed as less capable, less knowing, more foolish, and worse.

I am a 'conservative', but in the old form. I hope for days that no laws are built on race or separation. But I must ask, however, if it is not equally racist to base ideals that any race is better or more capable in one sphere than another?

Does this not add to separation rather than combination? When we say 'a black man is more capable of empathy than a white', is it not simply another subtle form of racism? It is based entirely upon race, and therefore highly suspect. Those subtle divisions are what leads us down the road we find ourselves upon; the idea that some people are less worthy than others, less capable, lesser and worse due to an arbitrary status that has no meaning.

There will always be racists, but we equally must look at ourselves. I continually hear people talking about how 'x' is more qualified... due to nothing less than the race, or the gender, or both. How they would make a better decision than 'y' of 'z' gender. My question is why it matters? Is it not another excuse to continue racism and gender issues in the guise of equality? Is it not racism to judge, for or against, on the issue of race?

If it is not... then we are no further along than when we started. It is equally racism to look for offense due to race as to give offense due to race. We've become, via the help of others who believe us incapable of decisions about racism, overly sensitive to the subject. We find more and more that we are set up, to try and fail without the 'help' of those who have appointed themselves to help us, and benefit from the positions.

Has racism become an issue that the nation cannot allow to die? Have we implemented policies that continue the segregation, even as we claim to seek to end it? Do our policies encourage weakness and dependency upon outside sources, upon laws, rather than upon self-control, self-actualization, and self-realization? Does anyone tell us that we are too weak to continue the fight? If so, then certainly they are using racism to control you. The truth is, we are all human beings, regardless of race, regardless of gender, without regard for sexuality, for religious preference. We all have our frailties, our failings, and we all have a great deal of power over ourselves and our world.

And we all have the ability to fight those who would keep us down, those who would say to you; “Don't be like the other side. Don't get an education, that's their way. Don't better yourselves. We'll take care of you.” What hubris! What gall! Why should any people be subjugated by their own, held helpless in their circumstances then told it's the 'other side' that keeps them there? We keep getting told that it's a democracy, and that we fight to preserve democracy or institute it overseas. It was, however, never intended to be a true democracy, but a republic of limited powers, with checks and balances, including checks and balances to prevent one part of the people from enslaving the others with 'good intentions'.
And yet today, racism still lives, and slavery still thrives. Not the slavery of the plantation, or the whips and chains, but slavery of the heart, subjugation of the will, and education, and reality. And it is accomplished, not by masters of the plantation, but those who seek to 'protect', without ever allowing us to realize that there is more to protection than allowing someone else to be your champion. The true champion teaches you to protect yourselves, teaches you to channel that moral outrage into building bridges, not tearing them down. The true champion teaches you to become more than you are, and be a power in the world not because of your race, but because of who you are inside.

Judged by the content of your character, not the color of your skin. Judged by your actions, your mind, your spirit, not by the melatonin or lack thereof. We are not blind to race... but only blind to the powers within ourselves, and those who seek to maintain us as a willing electorate by trying to ensure that the 'other side' has no foothold.

How often does crime become a racial issue? How often do we see juries selected not for their knowledge or discernment, but because of their race, and cases challenged not because of the facts or procedure, but the race of the prosecutor, jury, and judge? Does it not make more sense, if a judge or prosecutor are influenced by issues of race to ensure that they do not retain the office? Are there not recourses to misdirection and malfeasance?

But yet politicians would have us believe that the only route is new laws to protect one class of citizen from another. We already have laws dealing with 'racial issues'. Perhaps a better route would be allowing us, and our 'other side' to come to grips with our differences, and to recognize our similarities. But something in us cries out after all the hatred, “We have nothing in common with them!” “Why should we embrace them when they have done this to us?” Us versus them. To use an old term 'black vs white', and absolutism. So long as either side clings to the paradigm that the other side is bad, evil, and attacking them, there can be no peace. So long as there are sides, there will be war. And so long as we embrace stereotypes, they will continue to exist, as badges of honor, or badges of shame, and those with power will continue using it for the ends of power.

Even a total idiot can see that.