Which Supremacy?

As a person born in 1938, and growing up through the 1940s and 1950s, I am acutely aware of the glass wall that existed between the society of local and expatriate whites and our African and Indian brothers and sisters. We could look through this glass barrier, and open it slightly for some to pass through to work or serve, but not to join the privileged on the white side of the glass.

Remember, one could not see a black face working in the banking sector prior to 1970.

Today, peoples of all ethnic backgrounds (and in some instances, all ethnic backgrounds in one person’s face) are leading our professional, commercial and industrial sectors.

Some might add our governing sector here as well, but the persons — of whatever ethnicity — in governance represent incompetence, corruption and racism. Let us acknowledge that the residual core of racism in our society continues more steadfastly in our politics than in our social structures.

I touch lightly on our local experiences with culture and racism to try to establish a comparison with the evil of racist hatred that endures in America. I was a university student in Houston in the mid 1960s.

The police once raided my apartment because a student from Nigeria attended a party there. The following day, the cops returned, to tell me (excuse the language): “If you want to let a ‘nigra’ in here, it better be to clean the place or fix the plumbing.” I walked through a picket line of the hooded KKK to hear Stokely Carmichael speak on campus. It was scary, they came right up to you and stared into your face, and you had no idea who was behind that hood.

Some change has come to America since those days. But the core of the ignorance and racism, and those words are interchangeable, still pervades that society. America’s pretentious flag waving and posturing about equality and fairness allows too many of their citizens to live in denial of the brutish hatred which resides in their underclass – that ignorant, insecure and violent sector which pervades their society.

The media flatters them with the title White Supremacists. But these people are-- as all Americans know-- the lowest levels of intellect and achievement. They live in failure, business-wise, competence and achievement.

Admittedly, every now and then, out of the evils of self-hatred and prejudice, someone wily enough, exploiting false issues, can rise to wealth and even leadership — somewhat like a stubborn turd in a toilet bowl, which you cannot flush away. You may extend the analogy as you wish.

However, the current rise of Nazism and hatred is driven by the open encouragement of the President of the United States, who openly encourages the Klan and Nazis to feel that they are welcome to sow their hatred across the land.

Europe’s post-Renaissance conquest of the Americas and Africa and their introduction of the atrocity of slavery to the Americas was the beginning of America’s racial problems.

Their delay in ending slavery and the continuing cruelty and dehumanising of African people extends unto the current time.

America may be the most powerful nation on earth — economically and militarily— but it is nowhere close to being the most democratic, the most decent or the most fair to its citizens across the board.

The problem is that most Americans do not know this, they live on an illusion embedded in them that theirs is the finest, most decent, most democratic country on earth.

And this is simply not true.

Throughout history far more injustice, evil and cruelty has been imposed by white humanity upon other peoples than other peoples could ever impose upon whites.

The myth of a white supremacy in America is shattered by assessing achievement along ethnic lines, in terms of physical superiority (sports and athletics), science, engineering, medicine, everything, as more and more blacks and Asians carry America’s flag.

And then compare the successes (if any?) of those pathetics who are white and seek to claim superiority.

Americans themselves have the correct expression for these people.

They are “white trash”.

And as ugly, noisy and ignorant as those may be, they are still a small minority. But a river of decency and inclusiveness runs deep but too silently through American society.

And this river must flow purposefully to wash away the hatred espoused by the ignorance of the white trash, regardless of the offices held by those who esp o u s e the hatred.

It is now up to you, decent America.