I have been reading “A People's History of the United States” by Howard Zinn. In the book he paints a picture of oppression of one group over another. Those groups are divided by money, education, race and history. As I read I wonder are we even capable of seeing others as equals. Are we hard wired to see ourselves as better than someone different than us? Are we hardwired to see ourselves as savior to others to justify our actions. One thing that is clear in the book is that at some point the ones being maligned try to change their plight, and the ones doing the maligning fight that change with all means available, personal, institutional, religious, and governmental. Are we at our core violent greed filled beings who will compromise anything to achieve dominance. Are we destined for an endless pattern of oppressing and being oppressed. The issue I see is that in the west, whites have never been oppressed, never looking up from the bottom of the well, never being told what or how or when or why we should do one thing or another. This of course is true for people who have the wealth, or the status, or the pedigree that comes with privilege. Of course there are pockets within the dominant group that will suffer because of their lack of wealth/status/education. And yes it is dangerous to generalize but the picture is clear, one group is dominant in the USA, one group sets the agenda, one group benefits the most, one group believes it is on top for legitimate reasons.
I have seen this with my children being treated differently in public, in sports, at school, at church, at………. At times it surprises when I walk up a tell the person doing the down looking I am their parent, it causes a cognitive dissonance that is visible. Wait you cant be, your ……… And yes there are times I enjoy the discomfort this realization causes, yet it is painful to see my children being treated differently because of their outward appearance. It is real and it happens in places that at times surprise. Soccer games where the referee warns me a player is playing roughly after they have been blatantly fouled by another player and the surprise when I challenge them that they are questioning my child's character. Watching people move away or glare because my children are loud or active or even just walking quietly. I do it when I pull up behind a car that is decorated a certain way, a person is clothed a certain way, a music being listened to loudly. There is something in each of us that causes us to see others as we have been taught to see them. Something that attaches to our natural propensity to see ourselves as better. These lessons are subtle and overt, clear and diffused, yet they are there teaching us to believe. Believe that a certain flag is a sign of heritage not hate, a certain music is hate filled or pure, a type of dance is evil or righteous. The cues that surround us with the dominant message of our culture are deafening if we stop to listen long enough. So for me it comes to this, how do we change our view, do we want to change that view, can we change that view. I would propose we must change, we must transform ourselves to a new way of thinking. We must not comply with a culture that thrives on complicity. A quiet complicit life is the greatest threat to a culture that is trying to free itself from a legacy of oppression.
Imagine a culture, a world where privilege is abandoned and otherness embraced. I can see a few across the valley already walking those narrow and winding paths while we speed along our lush verdant boulevards of compliance.
What will you do?