I’m having a deja vu moment. I watched a movie last night, one I’ve revisited often; can’t say how many times. But it must have been removed long enough that I forgot how a movie can pull you in and how invested you can get with reflections and feelings. The characters and the plot touch enough buttons that you identify at several levels. This was that movie and I had forgotten. So I think I remember writing about this at one time or another but it feels new again.
The story revolves around ‘Seabiscuit’ a famous racehorse but the story itself is about the human condition. Through the 1920’s and the Great Depression people, even rich people, they struggled with the cards they had been dealt and leaned on each other out of mutual need. In the end, the horse rises to save the day. In short summary, the hook line for the whole movie was introduced early in the plot by the trainer, in defense of the horse. “You don’t throw a whole life away just because he’s banged up a little.” Near the end of the movie the owner resorts to the same line in defense of the jockey. Over and over I got the message, we are all broken toys and we need each other.
This morning, as my coffee maker began its bubbly, burping I listened to the news. In Minneapolis, MN, in the midst of pandemic, another unarmed black man died in police custody. A white officer had pinned his neck to the ground with his knee for over 7 minutes before the man died. Several days later, demonstrations continue to ferment with violence, looting and burning buildings. More deja vu, race riots from the 1960’s. Not just Minnesota, smoke was rising from coast to coast, north and south.
Mayors and civic leaders plead for restraint and due process while protestors rightfully question: How far has restraint and due process gotten us in the last 20 years? Civic leaders note, this is not protest. It is nothing less than violent, criminal activity against businesses and citizens that had nothing to do with the killing. I heard black religious leaders taking that position and tended agreed at first but then it started to ring of hypocrisy.
The problem with race relations and police tactics is not that minorities make bad decisions or that there are a few bad apples in the power grid. It is not about individuals rather, it conforms to a racial, cultural pattern of privilege and discrimination that has been systematically ingrained. We of the white race have great difficulty dealing with the “beam in our own eye” (Jesus’ sermon on the mount). It feels like a universal constant that prevails on the merit of its own hyperbole. Once upon a time, I think I was in college; someone I respected and admired shared his long suffering, hard earned wisdom. He said, “There are three corrupt institutions in this country that hide behind a thin veil of noble pretense. There is the legal system from the Congress to the Supreme Court down to local law enforcement. Then, there are banks and insurance companies. They are hand holding, kissing cousins. All three entities are predicated on and committed to advancing and preserving the status quo.” In simple language that means, power and wealth are interchangeable and should remain in the hands of the rich and powerful. . . if God didn’t want them in charge he would not have put them there. There need be a vertical hierarchy that allows for limited mobility, for a privileged few. Anybody can rise but not everybody. In order to have winners, there must be losers. It is incumbent on the power class to manipulate the culture to their own advantage. The underclass provides a pool of semi-slave, beast of burden resources to be spent in the pursuit of profit. In any case, the military doesn’t flinch in the clear eyed truth. Rank has its privilege.
I am not an expert on anything but I do know something about ghetto culture and white privilege. My people survived the Great Depression. We rose along with millions of other WW2 people from sharecroppers to home owners. But more than the good timing and hard work, we were white Christians, in the right place at the right time. That is so obvious in my experience but so unthinkable for most of my peers; it boggles my mind.
So, in less than 12 hours I’ve been down memory lane with mankind’s truly noble story (Seabiscuit) and been jerked back to denial and hypocrisy (America’s appetite for racist classism.) As much as we do need each other it is nigh impossible to self diagnose the curse we’ve come to depend on. I’ve been sheltered and blessed with white/male/christian privilege all my life. Whatever my input, it was necessary but my station in life has been less about me and more about the path I was on. George Floyd is dead today and people of color everywhere are pissed. They are not going to get over it. You can’t flourish in a system that preys on the underclass (poor people of color) and think they will get over it just because they did last time. Treyvon Martin is still dead and his murderer is free but it is old news. But black people have not forgotten. Every time the law is written to protect law enforcement (status quo) first suspects can be reduced to animals, unarmed people of color will be killed as a matter of protocol and their people are going to set things on fire. Flourishing at the expense of the underclass; that is another story by itself and way-too much for me to take on by myself.
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