THERE ARE NONE SO BLIND AS THOSE WHO WILL NOT SEE: A Message to The Divided States of America

THERE ARE NONE SO BLIND AS THOSE WHO WILL NOT SEE:
A Message to the Divided States of America
© 2014 PJ Hayward, New York

Being a Caucasian-born person who has now grown old and having lived since a young age among and surrounded by non-Caucasian cultures, I feel privileged, blessed ….and burdened ….to have had my vision expanded and my state of mind enhanced and enlightened by bearing witness to the daily life, joys, hardships, trials, suffering and mindset of both the World of Color and the Non-Colorized World.

Walking this middle road, I have learned to look beyond the outward smiles and handshakes of all people who cross my path. Sometimes it’s just the tiniest flutter of an eyelash or slightest turn of the lip that reveals the inner workings of a hidden self. Often it’s far more obvious. But rarely can the reality under the skin remain buried at all times….some telltale sign will eventually reveal it.

Even as a small child I became aware that we live in two Americas.

I was very fortunate to grow up in a home filled with books and lively discussion of every imaginable topic. It was also a home filled with frequent visits by family friends from many different cultures.

Very early on I observed what was impossible to ignore back in those days. When we would go and pay visits to family friends of color, whether from the Caribbean, Asia, India, Africa or the Middle East, here in America the homes of virtually all of them were far from our neighborhood. Wherever they lived, these family friends invariably lived in neighborhoods filled with people from their own respective cultures.

When I grew older and could really understand both the obvious and the deeper subtleties at play in the dynamics of life, I was appalled and disgusted by what I witnessed and learned from those around me – including the people I had known and loved all my life, even my most beloved ones, my own family.

What I learned was that people of my own race, whether poor or financially secure, almost universally fall into a certain mindset. A state of mind so entrenched and impermeable as to be unrecognized by conscious thought. Even more…if a person were to be confronted about this, it would be most vehemently denied.

The mindset is that of a fundamental sense of Entitlement and Privilege. Beyond that, an even deeper sense of superiority over all other races and cultures and sometimes even over other Caucasian cultures in other countries and even here in America.

I am not talking here about those Americans who are clearly and blatantly racist – those people show themselves without effort.  I refer to those multitudes of both “average Joes” and leaders who consider themselves as fair and open minded.  What I am speaking of is so deeply implanted and so hidden from rational thought that often even those who see themselves as liberal intellectuals cannot escape it and as I just said, most would vehemently deny it.

Examples of this subliminal state of mind can be seen even in some of our own highly visible contemporary American leaders. After Hurricane Katrina for example, Barbara Bush, the former First Lady of the land, actually went on National TV and proclaimed that many of the displaced New Orleans families should be happy they lost their homes because now they will be so much better off, having the great fortune of soon living in nice, clean FEMA trailers and eventually moving to shiny new homes somewhere else (and not mentioned but nonetheless – in another state far away from everything and everyone they have ever known).

What Barbara Bush was obviously and loudly showing of course, was her elitist auto-assumption that because these families were 1: primarily people of color and 2: possibly of a lower income level, they all lived in some derelict shack someplace, one step above living in a cardboard box. It was clearly outside the realm of her imagination or her highly touted background as an enlightened, educated woman, that those folks might have lived in spotlessly kept homes, adorned with family pictures lovingly placed on little white doilies, comfy chairs where Grandmas or other elders might sit and knit or read their bibles and every other thing a homey domicile would enclose. This is what I mean by a mindset – it just never even entered Mrs. Bush’s mind that a black family home might look exactly the same as any family home anywhere in America. Incredulously, it never occurred to her that those families would feel devastated exactly as she would have felt devastated had it been her own happy home that had been destroyed.

Now America is engaged in a great struggle to keep non-Americans from entering our borders. We are doing everything in our power to deny to newcomers the exact same things our own (free) ancestors sought when they came to this country, even though our own ancestors stole this land from people who initially welcomed them and helped keep them from starving. Our ancestors thanks for this lifesaving welcome and help was to have those native peoples tortured, forced from their lands, slaughtered and the remaining survivors eventually herded into reservations where they were then generally abandoned or kept controlled by government supplied liquor and drugs.

America, I implore you…. take a look deep inside yourselves. ALL of us today are in a quandary as to how to foment peace outside our borders in a world seemingly gone mad.

We are a nation that once upon a time was respected and esteemed the world over. Once upon a time we were considered the most powerful nation on earth. Those days seem long gone now.

Other great civilizations have fallen due to arrogance, willfulness and insular thinking. If we are ever to regain our standing of respect with the outside world and even within our own borders, we must begin at home by examining our own heads and hearts.

To those of you who do not inhabit the World of Color, I address you particularly.

Examine yourself honestly. Realize that there are hundreds of millions of people who do not receive a certain respect and attention from the world simply because they show up someplace. In fact often, if not usually, they experience the opposite. They show up and are immediately viewed with suspicion, contempt or worse.

YOU can change that. Evaluate yourself honestly. Look and see what you yourself can do to stop the cycle of hatred that is more and more permeating this once great land.

One person at a time, peace and harmony can be achieved.

Be a Beacon – obvious to all who see you!

With hope, some will follow your lead.

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