American Hypocrisy
Home of the Free, Land of the Brave and everything in between
Let’s Start in the Beginning….
So, imagine you’re in the18th century coming to America on a boat from your birth country. You’ve come to this country to start a new life, and it’s a life you want to live without being under rule. You see the makings of a striving community starting to become something of itself, and with the hustle and bustle of a new world as you see the dock in your view. It’s a place where you can make something of yourself.
However as you come closer to the dock steadily, you look towards your hands and see chains wrapped around you hands and ankles. You then see those that are fair-skinned walking around, and others like you as well all chained who are not. There’s a sudden realization that washes over you and you come to understand quickly that you’re shackled to men who aren’t free. Not because of what they could do mind you, but because of the skin color you and them possess.
Soon, you start to see not only men of your color but also people from lands of great unknown you have never heard of. All of them, dreaming like you to be free from the shackles that come with a common dream that you all relate to even your potential masters: Building something from nothing, and passing it on to your children, so they themselves know what freedom is like and to never be without.
Then, comes the American Revolution. You say to yourselves, those men in that small room are going to fight for us all. That we’ll finally be able to be a part of a country in which we can be truly free from the shackles of those that want to limit your freedom and live out your dreams. However, the freedom you all hoped for has sadly been fought for those of more fairer skin than you. You then work to gain your freedom, and fulfill your servitude but at the cost of your own treatment of being human. Your servitude then turns into resentment towards those that kept you chained, when all you want is to be free.
You then fight for your freedom, even if it means taking it by any means necessary. So, you rise up against your master and decide run up north with those that you helped free. But as you’re running for freedom, you hear a shot ring out behind, and dogs barking. Soon, a thud hits you in the back and causes you to fall face first. Your breathing starts to slowly escape from you as you look towards the north and sing….singing as if your life depends on it till your eyes come to a close forever. At least you’re free now from the life you’ve lived till the next one.
Jump Forward a Little to a Civil War…….
Now jumping more than a few years down or so, give or take, The American Civil war is in full swing, and you see people fighting against slavery in the New World. You think to yourself, today is the day where your people will be free amongst those of fairer skin and be treated more equally and fairly. You fight by helping runaway slaves to eventually joining in the war effort itself.
The north is considered free, but with layers of salt that you don’t see till you’re there. You see that the north is free to those that turned slave, and want a place to start anew as free men and women. But, what you see instead of freedom reigning is prejudice taking it’s head towards your people. You still fight for freedom, for no slavery of any kind but you wonder when a time will come for you to be treated as equals really?
Then, the emancipation proclamation was signed and you think finally something that will help my people. Something that’ll be of great help, and one more step closer to freedom and equality. Lincoln then becomes assassinated and the civil is done soon after, but something still feels not right. You’ve come to see that you weren’t really treated equal, or given much respect for your freedom right? You now have to deal with the laws that aren’t said and what’s said. Laws that in hindsight gives absolute freedom and respect towards white people especially white men but no absolute freedom and/or respect towards people of color such as yourself.
Then Comes Modern Times….
Look at where we are now We’ve won 2 World Wars(But were late to the party), lost 1 war in a country we didn’t need to be in. We’ve had our civil rights movement spearheaded by people of great renown such as the late Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcom X. Men in great sports who’ve demonstrated the importance of free thinking and setting your own path such as Muhammed Ali.
You’ve also had amazing writers with critical and unique viewpoints that will be missed in this day and age such as the likes of Hunter S. Thompson and Ernest Hemingway. What you see in the growing years is the growing of the American spirit, of the American dream.
But that dream and spirit doesn’t wash away years of prejudice, and racism that still rears its ugly head to this day. We get it, we’re in the best country of the world with the most rights and technically advanced to boot. But we somehow still miss the mark on things which should’ve been common sense.
One such example is financial literacy education. Even though we are the most technically advanced country with the best education(depending on who you ask or really if it’s an opinion that rings true somewhat) we’re rated 17th in financial education above brazil. Yes, I’m not making this up and if you want to, check out my article:
We’ve come to a point where both sides of this political and social fence can’t seem to talk to each other….it’s fucking annoying. I get it, we all want the same thing better lives for us and our children so they don’t live in the world we currently do at the moment. However, we’re going about it the wrong way.
You want to know how? Simple, we love pointing fingers at one another but forget we have three pointing right back at us. Meaning this: If you want to change your world or other people, you need to take a look at the mirror and change who you are. Not the other way around.
We can be fighting against bigots, racists, fascists', liberals, conservatives, democrats, republicans, whoever really, even Black Lives Matters protesters. But we seem to forget not to be who we’re fighting against, and being more than what society or anyone says.
The movement is something to be in support of, but we need to realize that no movement is perfect and that we’re all human capable of doing bad to each other regardless of skin color. The black community has a long history of dealing with prejudice, racism, stereotypes, bigotry and the like that they’ve had enough, but in that same token aspects of the community became they very thing it’s fighting against.
To explain, if an African-American sounds educated they would be considered to sounding “White” at least from what’s seen and feeling like an outsider. If you seemed to make a critical comment on the community, you would be considered an uncle tom. Hell, the black community doesn’t really acknowledge the LGBTQ+ community within itself cause of prejudice against the gay community. Don’t get anything wrong, we’re doing better and improving, but we’re not even close to perfect.
So, the question you have to ask yourself is this: What in the fuck can we do that’s different?
Because nine times out of ten, we’re all asking ourselves the very same damn question and doing our best to make our lives better. Because the only true being that could answer that question is ourselves, whether you believe in this movement or not, or being democrat or republican and everything in between. Don’t stop living, but most of all don’t stop changing for the better because your community needs it and the world needs it regardless of what creed, color, nationality or whatever the fuck you’re from, just be the best person you can be.
