I've been studying racism in the world, in America, and in one Midwestern state, in which I happen to live. This location makes the research easy because I can meet and talk to people of all ethnicities. Whether or not they realize it as we talk, and as I observe, they make it clear that, even nearly a half century after the American civil rights movement, racism is very much alive and active in the Midwest. My guess is that it is basically the same most everywhere in the US, and in most other places on Earth. This is about the nature of mankind, not of individuals, cultures, or even subcultures. People want to flock together with those they see as the same as themselves, and to feel and behave as though they are better than someone else. They get a slightly erotic feeling of power, even though power over humans is an absolute illusion. All you can really do to them is abuse and kill them. You can't remove their power to choose.
Part of racist behavior is to exclude others from access to those resources over which one has power and control: jobs, money, privacy, rights, freedoms, respect, and “common courtesy” – which latter resource, by and large, seems much less “common” today than it did earlier in our history. Racism continues to pervade every aspect of our lives, culture, society, and government, despite all the good efforts of lawmakers. As it is often said, you can't legislate morality.
But at the expense of becoming expansive, I am thinking now about all the other “isms” and their gargantuan impact upon people and cultures: ageism, lookism, classism, weightism, smokerism, even seatbeltless-ism. I think Americans should have safety equipment available, in the ridiculous rocketing death machines without which we don't think we can possibly survive (we could, you know). But the power of government to make sure I'm protecting myself, and to punish me if they think I'm not, is as un-American as forcing someone to eat a hundred apple pies. The line between a police officer looking into my car to see if I'm wearing a seatbelt, and his peering into my bathroom to make sure I'm using a rubber mat in my tub, is much thinner than our founding fathers would ever have been able to fathom within their vision of a free society.
"(Jim Gaffigan high whisper:) Who is this guy? We've never seen him before! Is he like us?"
I am one of a great many Americans like me, and my readers will identify themselves by reading this column. I suppose I will never come close to identifying myself. Frankly, if the pen is truly mightier than the sword, it makes me a little paranoid to be a truth-teller in America these days. If you still think that the powerful in America have not been assassinating truth-tellers all along, one way or the other, you needn't read the column any longer. You're just too ignorant of human nature, and probably most other truths you may find distasteful, to “get” anything I will write.
With that kind of ignorance, you will probably not even get my sense of humor. I'm not trying to insult any of you, just trying to tell the truth, at least as I see it.
Now that I'm done writing for today, and I'm hungry, I think I'll drive my car to a nearby McDonald's drive-through without putting on my seatbelt. An occasional fine to reclaim a right to constitutional liberty is a small price to pay. Yes, I could die in an accident thereby. America may very well assassinate me just by being too lenient on the bad drivers, such as the powerful lawmakers who want to continue, and can afford the fines for, their own bad driving. Eventually America can be expected to assassinate me through the thousands of Big Macs I will continue to eat during my life. If it will provide money and power to the powerful of America, nearly anything goes – or soon will go – as long as I use my power to choose to lie back, comfortable, and go along with the program. In America, if there's money in it, personal, corporate, or government responsibility toward other people's well-being is ultimately nonexistent.
After lunch I might go gamble away some money that I cannot afford to lose – illegal in most places till recently – and then greatly improve my chances of getting a thrill by standing outside in a lightning storm.
Or I may just start a “Fight Club”- type revolution. I don't think I have split into two personalities – yet – but we liked the movie because we do not really like most of America, such as it is. And we want to change it -- as long as we can have fun and satisfy our carnal desires in the process.
But I think I would really just rather go find somebody sufficiently different from me upon whom to perpetrate a hate crime – especially if the McDonald's gets another drive-through order wrong.
