What’s up in Ferguson, MO? Are they just “animals” and “losers” like Kevin Sorbo of Hercules recently ranted. This type of de-humanizing language, void of compassion, is on the rise – along with billions of dollars of military equipment for domestic use. But we would have the law of the jungle if there were no police – right? It used to be that the mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandmas and pas were the leaders, mediators, and police of their clan. When did responsibility end and the blame game begin? Many cities today are increasingly void of a strong foundation of families that are responsible for the community. True human connections are stunted by the economic paper chains that mute human freedom and cloud the inhumane disasters that increasingly plague us.
The media blames racism, poverty, or bad/stupid people who just want rims, hair weaves, and government hand-outs. One recent headline reads, “Compton School Police To Be Armed With AR-15 Rifles.” It seems like love and peace are now just hippie motifs meant to give us the feeling everything is cool. It reminds me of the clear liquid we concocted in chemistry class that smelled exactly like bananas – but obviously was not. Remember the social outcry when gangster rap emerged? Now the Compton condition is just mettle for wanna-be-millionaire rappers – and has spread to pop culture all around the world. Forget the message, feel the beat, look at the shine. Is main-streaming acceptance of serious problems really the solution? Do we really want rampant racism, militarized police, and mass shootings to be the new normal?
Seemingly basic responsibilities of stewardship, family, and community have increasingly been abandoned and replaced by economic survival. If we remember how horrible human events have unfolded in the past – we can avoid the same in the future. The way it is happening now is how it always happens. Economic depression gives way to desperate human conditions, that make naturally compassionate humans into cornered rats. There are terrible things happening now that opportunity is scarce and war is worldwide. This story leads to human catastrophe while power hungry sociopaths get increasingly wealthy. Follow the money through history to get the real story.
We can turn our back on 57,000 desperate refugee children that we officially call the Apprehension of Unaccompanied Alien Children. We are in dangerous waters when economic burden so easily supersedes human compassion. It is no wonder that we can callously ignore the plight of poverty stricken African American communities. Slavery and segregation are conveniently forgotten while social injustices soar. See how the for profit prison system is traded on Wall Street so lucratively. Those who claim dangerous racism is in the past – are living in the past. De-humanizing economic excuses comfortably sit aside all the other “news” of the latest iPhone, ball games, and celebrity drama. Something is not just wrong in America as Al Sharpton recently expressed, racist sentiments are fermenting all over the world. See what is happening in Europe now.
Do you remember when you first learned what happened during the holocaust? We were comforted with the slogan, “Never Again.” Most of us believe we are the keepers of justice and freedom in the world – but the track record shows millions killed from racism’s mentor genocide – on our watch. Most believe that this is not happening in our era. It sadly seems that we are like those German’s who sat back as millions were killed. A return to the law of the jungle would be a move in the right direction towards freedom and justice. It is said that the savages are not in the jungle – they are the ones cutting it down.
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of
memory against forgetting.
Milan Kundera
