In The Final Analysis
I know, it's been a long time since I last posted. Fun fact: I started to write "long time, no post" as a play on the common saying "long time, no see", but I've tried to strike that from my vocabulary as it's racist as shit. If you don't believe me, Google it.
Anyway, yeah, I haven't posted in a while. Sorry about that. It started to feel like work, and then I started consuming too much internet media and I spiraled down into a funk, and the thought of writing anything, even if it was just for me, was way too exhausting and overwhelming a task, so I did nothing.
Then COVID hit, and I really did nothing.
Recently, though, I've been getting back into things. Movies, games, reading, hell, I've even started prop modifying/making again. I'm still trying to consume as little internet media as possible, though, because everything fucking sucks right now.
Which brings me to my post today.
You've probably seen articles or heard about how we're solving racism by getting rid of outdated, stereotypical mascots for things like syrup and microwave rice. Or maybe you've been told that the only way to learn from the mistakes of our history is by removing them or editorializing them, like several TV shows and movies with blackface or racist attitudes have done. Perhaps you've read about several white voice actors being recast so they won't provide the voice of people of color anymore, because that's the problem. I'm sure you've seen on the news that we'll all be equal once we remove all the Confederate statues and change all the battle flags. We've fired a few cops, and promised real hard to de-fund police and stop using chemical weapons, but none of that has actually happened yet.
Even if we follow through on all the promises and well-intentioned thoughts, and remove any and all examples of the overt, in your face racism that plagues modern society, so what? Nothing really changes. Not really. Police are still going to be killing black people. Minorities are still going to be disenfranchised and disadvantaged. The prison industrial complex will still exist. We can't just fix this problem with some band-aids and doing things that, let's be honest, we should have done years ago. I mean, we never should have allowed these things to become normalized anyway, but that's a whole other discussion.
Ultimately, all of the current "changes" are surface level. They're half measures at best, and completely fucking meaningless at worst. They only serve as a way for white people to pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves on a job well done because we solved racism! Then they get to go on with their lives while people of color continue to be literally murdered in the streets.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr once said, "Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again."
Dr. King said that in 1967. Here we are, 53 years later, and what about that has changed? Has any of it changed? Is anything different? Or have we failed to hear that we, as a society, are more concerned about our storefronts and getting haircuts than justice, equality, and our fellow man?
Nothing changes. Nothing gets fixed. Not with band-aids and half measures. If we, as a society, really want to solve racism and make sure all of us are judged not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our characters, then we have to make hard choices, and go all the way with them. We have to deconstruct everything, examine everything, and we cannot be complacent about any of it or anything. It's all gotta go. Burn it all down, and rebuild from the ashes, but this time, do it better.
Because in the final analysis, we have postponed justice and failed to hear the message for far too long.
Anyway, yeah, I haven't posted in a while. Sorry about that. It started to feel like work, and then I started consuming too much internet media and I spiraled down into a funk, and the thought of writing anything, even if it was just for me, was way too exhausting and overwhelming a task, so I did nothing.
Then COVID hit, and I really did nothing.
Recently, though, I've been getting back into things. Movies, games, reading, hell, I've even started prop modifying/making again. I'm still trying to consume as little internet media as possible, though, because everything fucking sucks right now.
Which brings me to my post today.
You've probably seen articles or heard about how we're solving racism by getting rid of outdated, stereotypical mascots for things like syrup and microwave rice. Or maybe you've been told that the only way to learn from the mistakes of our history is by removing them or editorializing them, like several TV shows and movies with blackface or racist attitudes have done. Perhaps you've read about several white voice actors being recast so they won't provide the voice of people of color anymore, because that's the problem. I'm sure you've seen on the news that we'll all be equal once we remove all the Confederate statues and change all the battle flags. We've fired a few cops, and promised real hard to de-fund police and stop using chemical weapons, but none of that has actually happened yet.
Even if we follow through on all the promises and well-intentioned thoughts, and remove any and all examples of the overt, in your face racism that plagues modern society, so what? Nothing really changes. Not really. Police are still going to be killing black people. Minorities are still going to be disenfranchised and disadvantaged. The prison industrial complex will still exist. We can't just fix this problem with some band-aids and doing things that, let's be honest, we should have done years ago. I mean, we never should have allowed these things to become normalized anyway, but that's a whole other discussion.
Ultimately, all of the current "changes" are surface level. They're half measures at best, and completely fucking meaningless at worst. They only serve as a way for white people to pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves on a job well done because we solved racism! Then they get to go on with their lives while people of color continue to be literally murdered in the streets.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr once said, "Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again."
Dr. King said that in 1967. Here we are, 53 years later, and what about that has changed? Has any of it changed? Is anything different? Or have we failed to hear that we, as a society, are more concerned about our storefronts and getting haircuts than justice, equality, and our fellow man?
Nothing changes. Nothing gets fixed. Not with band-aids and half measures. If we, as a society, really want to solve racism and make sure all of us are judged not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our characters, then we have to make hard choices, and go all the way with them. We have to deconstruct everything, examine everything, and we cannot be complacent about any of it or anything. It's all gotta go. Burn it all down, and rebuild from the ashes, but this time, do it better.
Because in the final analysis, we have postponed justice and failed to hear the message for far too long.
Comments
Post a Comment