The Reckoning Of America

 

                                The Reckoning of America 

A true change is on the horizon for American ideologies and their institutions far and wide.  In all fifty states this immanent change of heart is clearly palatable and beginning to take flight in what is set to be the greatest civil rights movement since the late sixties.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 granted the right to vote for African American citizens.  This was right around the time my parents were born incidentally not that long ago.  I had high school teachers and mentors who were much older than fifty and they could clearly remember and were instrumental in recanting the amount of injustice people of color had to endure at the hands of their violent oppressor the American Government and its statures riddled in  white supremacy.

When I came to New York City in the early 90s it was as confusing and exciting as it would be for any five year old Spanish speaking boy from Mexico to have come to American shores and start a new life in this vast experiment called America.  In 1992 the Rodney King riots marked the next 20 years of violence against people of color. I remember seeing for myself how they beat that man half to death one year earlier the cause of the Riots. 

It became clear that racist were running the police station throughout the Nation however the problem was deeply rooted in white supremacy.  Still though, it was more than just vicious cops. The problem here is institutionalized racism throughout the whole system that benefited whites and disproportionately afflicted people of color. 

 Since I was a little boy I could see the tears & wears of racism and how it was imbedded into everything, there for in turn affecting everything, The Economy, Health Care, so called Education or lack thereof.

This is the “so called Reckoning of America” manifesting and taking place in some form or another, at last! It is here and taking place right now! America’s dark secret of Genocide, Annexation and practice of inhuman torture in the form of slavery is the original sin in a land proclaiming to uphold Christian values and virtues.

 Americans everywhere are questioning their forefathers and founding Fathers ideals, especially those revolving around slavery which was commonplace in Europe however it was not a practice of the Native People, the original people of America, from as far up as Alaska, which was ones called “Lashka,” Yes it was once pronounced without the A, to as far south as Argentina, which was then called “The Land of Fire,” From North to South, slavery was not a practice or even a concept here in the New World, this is so unconscionable as to owning someone else or owning the land,  would have been an aberration.  To own someone or to have ownership over land was unseen and unheard of and clearly an alien concept that was foreign to all the original people of this great continent.  Still though, it was the new way of life that was forced upon by the oppressing new comers who had taken over the whole continent by force in what was known as the crusades or time of conquest of the Americas, which is no different than annexation. 

Fast forward some 500 years later and the cause effect of a hostile takeover is still present today in so many ways, one particularly is the many statues, monuments, and memorials commemorating the violent acts of these so called leaders who disguised their thug behavior in the form of revolution by means of violently taking over a land and a people.  Statues of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln among many others statues are being toppled by the strength of the people, in many cases the very government officials who protect the statures behind the statues are the ones who are forced by the overwhelming amount of people who wish for these monuments to be removed.

Why are so many statues being removed though out the fifty states here in America?  Because many of the statues represent ideologies and a time when slavery was a way of life for powerful white people in power, furthermore this behavior is looked down upon in current time, even after the abolishment of slavery there still remain a form of mental slavery that affects all people of color, in the form of this perfect system for some people and a broken system for others. That is what those statues being removed, really represents.  It is the admission the accepting of this reality, that abolishing slavery was not enough if the system is still benefiting some and not all.

 It has never been like this before we have had revolutions in this Country but nothing like we are seeing today everywhere there are demonstrations demanding for change in Policing and actually funding communities who have been targeted by the so called  “war on drugs” & “stop and frisk,” policies that have been proven to target people of color. What do these incarcerations translate to?  Money for the court system working hand in hand with the police department, which translates to more revenue for them evermore driving home the barcode metaphor implying that we are just a number that translates to more money generated at the suffering of people of color, this has to change.

 

 It seems that it is changing but only time will tell but there have been many changes that are starting to take place in the form of legislative change. But taking down a few statues along with its implied statures is not enough.  It is changing the standards of which we live by.  It is about having a true meritocracy imbedded in our democracy so as to have a social system that gives opportunities to a people on the basis of their abilities rather than their wealth or seniority. 

In closing the current status of leadership presiding over the White House has awakened and given a platform to every known racist in America, conversely it has awaked and in like manner given a voice to those who stand up for equality and look down on racism.  Until more laws are enacted to fix the imbalance of institutionalized racism throughout our system as a whole, no real change will come.

Perhaps by returning this land over to its original people would America the Beautiful be able to have a fighting chance at that experiment to be a success, perhaps by looking into how in the case of America, the Native Indians, who ruled this land for millennia before the conquest surely they could tell us a thing or two about how to survive and thrive in this land that was once their own, as they never had any record of Viral Pandemics, or mass death in the form or wars because they didn’t believe in war nor were they carriers of Viruses, this was brought over with the Spanish their cousins the English.  Real reparation is in order, until these questions remain open and impunity remains the order of the day, lawless individuals will persist. 

By Meshikatlan