The Sage Observer

Our Racial and Class Discrimination

          It has been said that in the beginning of our great nation, the American Union, there were three great civilizations. To quote Alexis De Tocqueville from his great classic, Democracy in America, published in 1835, there were “three naturally distinct, I might almost say hostile, races. Their education, their law, their origins, even their external features had raised an almost insurmountable barrier between them…. Among these very different men, the first to attract attention, the best educated, the most powerful, the happiest, is the white man, the European, the epitome of man; in a position inferior to him appear the Negro and the Indian.” The Negro, the white man, i.e. the Anglo American, enslaved; the latter, the Indian, he destroyed. I do not discuss the Spanish or Mexicans here because they did not join our Union until after the Mexican War; but, from their treatment, even now, can one not see similarities?

Alexis De Tocqueville goes on to say, “Would you not accept, after seeing what happens in the world, that the European is to other races what man himself is to the animals? He uses them for his own convenience and destroys them when he fails to bend them to his will. In one fell swoop, oppression has deprived the descendants of the Africans of almost all the privileges due to human beings! The American Negro has lost even the recollection of his homeland; he no longer hears the language of his fathers; he has renounced their religion and forgotten their ways. Ceasing, in this way, to belong to Africa, he still has not acquired any rights to the good things of Europe; but he is left suspended between the two societies; he has remained cut off from the two nations, sold by the one and rejected by the other; in the whole universe, his master’s hearth affords him the only semblance of a home. The Negro has no family; in a woman he can see only a passing companion of his pleasures and, from their birth, his sons are his equals” —not infrequently sold from their mothers’ wombs before they are even born.

The Negro, enslaved, raped, pillaged, and often beaten and even murdered, was frequently no more, and treated no better, than the animals to which De Tocqueville referred above. It was against the law to teach them to read and write, to educate them. Even when they were finally freed, after the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, what were they but, except for their souls, more or less, uncivilized animals unleashed into an enlightened society of survival of the fittest, let the devil take the hindmost—forced to fend for themselves, compete on an unlevel playing field literally scrounging for a living the best they could, and not infrequently ostracized by society and pursued by terrorists such as the KKK. It wasn’t until 1965 and the Civil Rights Act, one hundred years later, that they gained any semblance of real freedom; and, even now, fifty more years later, they continue to be oppressed by substandard education, unequal employment opportunity, questioned voting rights, and acceptance into society. Whether we like hearing this or not, these are, in short and speaking in general, the facts and the breeding ground for the state of the Negro in the United States today. Even more to the point, we created, cultivated, and nurtured the racial problem we have today.

One can argue with me if they wish; but, in my view, our racial problem(s) today, especially in light of current economic conditions and growth of globalization and power of the Corporatocracy and Power Elite within and without our nation, are becoming more intense and stressful with each passing day. Just one reference alone is the current racial unrest in and around Ferguson, Missouri. If we are to live as a nation, in peace among ourselves, we must solve our problems of racial and (I’ll add) class discrimination. Our nation cannot grow, thrive, be happy, and survive if we are constantly at war with each other within, the rest of the world notwithstanding.

Our problems are what they are; to seek their resolution, we can only begin from where we are; we sowed the seeds which created them; and now they must be solved. We must learn to live together and love one another, the very essence of Christianity. To this end, to the very best of our abilities, we must eliminate our underclass, be they black or white. We absolutely must. For the reasons I discussed above, the majority of our underclass is black, but so, also, for a variety of reasons, are there very many white people in this bracket. In a manner of speaking, the same solutions can help to resolve similar problems. This can be done, but it is not a one-way street. Let there be no misunderstanding. All sides of the street must do their part to help. Only a fool would fail to see that we all have flesh in the game. All must work to the utmost of their abilities.

One of the most important solutions to resolving our racial and economic problems is education. Let there be no argument about it. Every last one of us should have an education, pre-K through high school—bar none. Beyond that, every last one of us should, at a minimum, either have a four year college degree in pursuit of a career or graduate from a certified trade school of their choice. There should, by law, be no drop-outs with appropriate enforcement thereof, as well as reasonable allowance for those who are mentally and/or physically unqualified. Obviously, the intent here is to enable all to be employable, productive, and carry one’s own weight in society. All education should include the teaching of values, manners, behavior, people skills, and leadership. Financed by a special Federal Tax earmarked as such, the proposed educational program should also insure that the very poor should have equal opportunity from the bottom to the top of the spectrum to receive an equal opportunity to an education to the best of their ability. 

In regard to education, I want to make two more points. First, all people learn the most in the first years of their life, beginning with what they see, and feel, as well as what they read and hear from others. Examples they see all around them every day teach as much, if not more than, what they are told. A good and positive home environment is absolutely imperative. Secondly, I want to talk briefly about intelligence—individual intelligence. Lest one get “too big for their boots”, or, conversely, feel inferior in regard to others, none of us are equally intelligent. We are all born with intelligence at different points along the curve from the most stupid of us to the most brilliant. Most of us, the average person, race notwithstanding, fall in the middle of the curve. We call it “the average”. Many years ago, I had a college professor tell our class, “Genius is 95% perspiration and 5% genius”. I submit to you that hard work, reading, studying, and exercising your mind will enable almost everybody reading this to keep up with even those supposedly “smarter than you” on most any day.

To our political leaders I ask the following question. Are you more interested in enriching our nation making it more prosperous, secure, raising the standard of living of all our people and saving our democratic republic from fascism; or, rather, are you more interested in continuing on your present course of enriching yourselves and the top one percent, the Corporatocracy and Power Elite among us at the expense of undermining our democracy, our government of the people, by the people, and for the people?

To the people of our great nation I ask the following question. How long are you going to continue to allow our elected representatives to sell your vote through campaign contributions and bribes from the Corporatocracy and Power Elite? If you like your freedom, then give recognition to the fact that our freedom does not and has never been free. Our people over the years of our history have spilled enough blood to attest to that fact. Theodore Roosevelt saved our hind ends at the turn of the century from these bloodsucking Robber Barons. Once again, during the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and subsequently, Harry Truman, saved us again. You have only to look at the historic prosperity we enjoyed in the forties, fifties, and sixties as compared to the present to see what I’m talking about now.

The two greatest problems our nation is facing today, right now, is the loss of our democratic republic to the Corporatocracy and Power Elite and Racial and Class Discrimination within. If we don’t solve these two problems and solve them now, all else is a moot point. Everything begins with you and me. Let us get to work.

Ronald Miller

Email me at mtss86@comcast.net