Unbearable Blackness

There is a suffocating wind choking us almost daily now. It whistles through poor neighborhoods and posh suburbs and city streets and country lanes, a thick, odious sirocco filled with malevolence and meanness that scours away the facade of America as world builder and paragon of democracy. It leaves a deformity behind in our society that is ignored by many and suffered by too many more.

It is the unbearable blackness.

Unbearable, in that several hundred years of sable servitude's savagery was not erased by a continent-shaking war, nor all the legislation committed to reams of paper since. Not even as august a thing as a Constitution could hydraulically fracture out the deep wells of misbegotten bigotry buried so far down in the foundation of a nation. A few hundred, a few thousand years of gauging others by their tongues, their beliefs, and their skin, that pressure could not be released by so many pinpricks of the rough hide of a foreign-born nation.

Our European ancestors, wherever they went, saw the natives as "savages," because they were unaware of or unwilling to hear the words The Bible and absorb the sacrosanct belief that White Anglo-Saxon Protestants had been commanded by a swarthy prophet of the desert kingdom of the Israelites to go out and conquer the world that was rightfully theirs. New Testament churches driven by Old Testament zeal led to the corruption and conscription and dissolution of societies that had existed before Jesus set one foot upon the ground. They took the Savior's name, cloaked it in the God of Abraham's wrath and wrought conversion upon the "unenlightened."

That lust for the conversion of everything into a Christian kingdom overspread the Earth. Fed into its maw were tribes and villages and cities and creeds, to be converted into missions and cathedrals and gold and piety. And where the natives would not be pacified, they would be harnessed, and if that were too hard, exterminated. Commanded to "be fruitful and multiply," these European invaders took that as a tacit command to take what was needed to create God's kingdom there upon the ground and woe to those who stood before his host! If a Black body could be bent to serve the Lord, upright or upon their knees, so be it.

That has been the groundwork, that has been the fire, that has been the catalyst, that consumed all before it, left lands far and wide, barren and sere, removed of their joyous multitudes, now yoked to the plow of progress. With a the human landscape burnt and blasted, the winds could sweep up into a maelstrom, to plunge down upon the scattered children and suffer them further indignities.

Now we see it every day, almost. Darker skin thought cancerous, drawing the evil naturally down upon itself. Lady Macbeth wailed against a spot; now our brothers and sisters wail over the darkness of their skin, that attracts the fingers of death. The whitest among us act as if nothing is wrong, that they brought the stain upon themselves somehow, that their skin was always meant to be beneath the notice of Men. So many voices raised in Christian song on Sunday, spit epithets on Monday at the outrage of thousands of their Black countrymen beweeping the deaths of their brothers and sisters at the hands of White taskmasters thinly cloaked as purveyors of Law & Justice.

Even in our highest halls, those sent to govern instead throw fits when it appears a Black man is more competent, forthright, and knowledgeable than they. They curse The People for their progressiveness and seek to wound them at every turn, casting the orphan out on the street, failing to fill the bellies of hungry, denying the destitute refuge, even shunning those who fought so they might have the freedom to be petulant and peevish. They stammer and stamp their feet as the man duly elected to lead the nation succeeds despite their every impediment and roadblock and remains adored by a nation that not so long ago was on the brink of destruction.

This blackness is unbearable. That it suffocates the living with fear and hatred, that it pervades the souls of so many who claim to be the best of God's flock, that it is draped upon the bodies of too many who are gunned down in the street and left to die... it is a weight that cannot be withstood for much longer. The darkness of skin should not be the arbiter of human value. "All Men are created equal" it says & if we are to interpret that in the spirit it was meant, then no thing, no belief, no skin color, no sexual orientation, no language, no nationality should bar the individual from the Rights that are so inalienably theirs. No Black person should walk down the street with the thought in their mind that there is a target on their back and it is only a matter of time before the hunters come. It is wrong. It is unjust. It is un-American. And it is unbearable.

A Date Which Fades From Memory

Seventy years later and so few remain who woke to that tropical Sunday morning in the Territory of Hawaii, prepared for just another leisurely day in the sunshine. As men drowsily stirred, splashed faces with water, and stood in line for chow or assembled for the morning colors, most did not realize that their destiny was about to be writ in blood and cordite and shrapnel and smoke. On that morning, the subtle hints of the pending attack could not rouse a sleeping giant to readiness. A submarine being sunk, a large radar blip, the drone of planes where they did not normally assemble... it was not enough.

As bands struck up the anthems and flags were drawn to poles to be raised, the long, isolationist idyll of America was shattered by the snarling of aircraft engines, the howl of diving planes, the staccato bursts of machine gun and cannon fire, and the body-flexing crump of explosions as bombs and torpedoes found their mark. The seemingly invincible United States, "master" of two oceans, was caught napping in its island paradise. Ships were torn apart and capsized. Planes were wrecked. Buildings and men and women immolated, wreathed in fire. The Japanese nation, dismissed by many as near-sighted toy-makers, has pulled off a stunning coup, catching America flat-footed and wrecking the powerful United States Navy within the confines of its own "safe" harbor.

A Body In Motion

Newton's Laws of Motion were the first definitive set of rules that allowed humanity to understand its relationship to the universe. He was the first scientist after Galileo to determine how the inimical forces of nature acted upon things in their environment in a systematic way. Others had nibbled around the edges of the problem – Newton boldly set forth his bible of science, a cookbook for God's works, as it were.

One of the most interesting of the laws states that “a body in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an external force.” In the Newtonian world, rolling a ball along an infinite and frictionless floor meant that once imparted with motion, the ball would continue on forever in a straight line unless it encountered something with which to exchange energy (another ball, a bullet, a dip in floor, etc.). A profound bit of thinking, to which Albert Einstein would apply corrections later on to account for all manner of forces unknown at the time of Newton. But this simple rule would provide a deep insight into how the world worked, and prove the driver for scientific inquiry right up to this day.

The Ocean Blue

Columbus Day is not the holiday it once was.

A century ago, Columbus was the toast of many a school, and his importance in the grand scheme of things  could not be understated. He discovered the "New World," a strange name for a place that had always been there. He opened up a route to trade in the Caribbean and brought Western sensibilities to the "barbarous tribes" of the region. He brought religion, he brought technology, and he brought commerce, and lifted the natives up from their primitive state; those who fought against the changes, were backward, and often had to be destroyed.

In more recent times, under the agitation and encouragement of the surviving native tribes of North America, a movement has been afoot to set the record straight about Christopher Columbus and those who came after him. Columbus, far from being the noble explorer, was by turns the greedy impresario, a charlatan looking for easy riches, and the world's worst seaman, completely inept when it came to navigation. His finding the Caribbean was a happenstance, a dangerous one, as it turned out, for those who lived there peacefully. Columbus and his retainers began an unending series of depredations against native tribes in the Americas, leading to their wholesale destruction in some cases, and their marginalization in others.

There can be no doubt, as we look through the lens of history, that the day Columbus stepped off his ship and into the lives of the natives of The Bahamas, was a seminal moment in history. The native tribes of the Americas, safe in their isolation, with fully formed civilizations of their own, were now intruded on by strange, alien visitors, who brought with them sights unseen, things unimagined, and concepts utterly foreign to the self-assured tribes. They welcomed the visitors at first, perhaps thinking of them as gods, or perhaps merely long-lost cousins; their hospitality was repaid in disease, rape, slavery, and death. From those tenuous beginnings, the influence of Western culture spread, a virus engulfing and infecting everything in its path, rendering once proud nations of natives impotent to stop them. No matter what the reason, the infiltration of Europeans into the vast and open continents of the Americas altered the course of history irrevocably, and lead to death on a scale unimaginable, even in the great wars that would be fought in the 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries.

October 12th, 1492 is a bittersweet day, depending on what side of the divide you are on. If you are Italian, Columbus, native son of Genoa, brought great pride in his accomplishment. If you are from Spain, Columbus represents one of the high-water marks of Spanish domination of the seas, and Europe. If you are a modern native of one of the many South or Central American countries, you have him to thank for your existence. If you are a member of any tribe of North America, there can be only bitterness and betrayal. If you are American, you got here because of what he did.

Let us not belabor the issues, because the history of the "New World" is fraught with pitfalls; the events that sprang forth from it are so wide and varied and divisive, that to bring coherence and consensus is virtually impossible. I sit here, now, a product of a nation built on the backs of natives who were forced from their homes, exterminated in large numbers, and robbed of their existence as a people. My success as an American comes at the price of so many who came before me, and I cannot undo, to any sufficient degree, what was done. I can only try and move forward, and as I do, remake my nation into one that accepts what it did, is genuinely sorry for what it has done, and makes whatever reparations it can. In the meantime, I can work to understand what Columbus' voyage meant to America as a nation, and mourn for all that was lost because of it. Instead of celebration, may Columbus Day become a time of reflection,  when we seek understanding and make peace with a troubled past.

The Immigrant Trail

Columbus did not discover America, nor did the Vikings. It's hard to discover a place that is already inhabited by people who knew it was there all along. Any and all who came to North America from the 15th Century on, were not truly discoverers, but were emigrants from their home countries. They came here to start a new life and take on new challenges; they wanted to provide a better life for their families and have some measure of freedom unlike they had in their old homes. Thus began the immigrant trail. If any group can be said to have a right to be angry about illegal immigration, it would be the native tribes of North America, for the immigrants came and came and came, pushing them off of lands they had hunted, fished, and roamed for centuries, putting up walls and marking out boundaries.

Once the new immigrants had a foothold, then came the task of survival, and after that commerce, and after that, self-rule. Out of the vast spaces were carved colonies, and then states, and then countries. And still others came, to try and fill up the space, to make new lives and to breathe free. The natives could only watch as their world continued to shrink; they fought where they could, but mostly they retreated, or worse, died. They would wind up crowded into tiny, arid, inhospitable reservations, while the waves of foreign immigrants continued to pour over the land, swallowing it up.

Every group that came after were looked upon as pariahs, no-good layabouts looking for an easy buck or trying to take the jobs of the hard-working "natives." The Italians, the Irish, the Chinese, et. al. -- each group would suffer under the prejudice of those who came before them, denigrated for being late-comers who were only there to deprive "real" Americans of jobs and wealth. This did not stop their exploitation, though, for the newcomers would do anything, take any job, for any amount of pay, simply to earn a living, and would toil far harder than most to scrape out the "American dream."

This cycle repeats, a new group washing up on the shores of the glittering promise that is the land of the free and the home of the brave, to fill the cracks in American society, take over the manual and menial jobs, and fill the ranks of the more skilled positions with labor that is cheap. They face the same kind of ignorance and prejudice that all the groups that cam before them faced. They do it mainly to make money to send back home, to countries where there is little or no work, or where jobs pay so little that living is difficult. In many cases they have come here illegally, gambling that will find work and be able to avoid drawing the attention of the authorities.

There is a great amount of invective bandied about on the subject of what to do to those who are here illegally, and how to keep more from getting in. The fact is, no amount of walls and border crossings and security is going to completely shut off the flow of illegal immigrants. The borders of America are far too expansive, of too varied a terrain, to be easily patrollable or defensible. Those who want to get in, will get in; those who can make a buck helping them get in, will help them get in.

As to those who are here, their number is so great that any concerted and sustained effort to root them out will be fruitless, for even as many are removed, still more will get in. That, and those that are here have insinuated themselves into the fabric of modern American society so deeply, that for them to disappear would inconvenience so many citizens, that there would eventually be a hew and cry. These new immigrants fill positions that others do not want or think beneath them -- busboys, cooks, gardeners, landscapers, handymen, maids, housekeepers, nannies, etc. They are cheap labor, and many a "real" American is willing to look the other way to slip them a pitiable sum in cash to have their hedges trimmed and their sheets folded, even as they declare in public that "these people must go."

The solution, as with anything, is pretty simple: make them citizens. Give them the opportunity to come out of hiding. Allow them to take their rightful place in this country, to live under the protections of the Constitution, and more importantly, to pay taxes on their income. Let them pay their way to be here, and still be able to send money home to support their families. Let them come, let them live, let them add their culture and their grit and their determination to the tapestry that is the long roll of American immigration. For a nation that prides itself on its freedom and independence, what greater way to show it than to throw open the doors, let them in, and absorb them into the nation that was built by immigrants.

Death Comes To Haiti

Haiti: a small island nation in the Caribbean Sea, sharing that island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. A former French colony which threw of the yolk of Imperialism to gain independence, and then spent generations struggling to create itself. A poor country, ravaged by poverty, lack of services, political corruption, and hurricanes. And now, it suffers the gross indignity of its position on the boundary of the North American and South American crustal plates, by being shaken by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, leading to death, devastation, and despair on a scale even larger than that left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and possibly worse than the Asian Tsunami of 2004.

This small, struggling, often destitute nation has been an afterthought in a hemisphere of afterthoughts. The Caribbean is more known as the destination of cruise ships and sun seekers, than a collection of small, struggling countries and colonies, dependent on tourism and their meager exports to maintain themselves. Haiti is certainly buried by its larger neighbors to the south, unable to compete with Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina for the attention of the First World. Except of course, when political strife or natural disaster strike.

All disasters before pale in comparison to the fate that befell Haiti at around 5:00 PM local time on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010. At that moment, strain built up by decades of slow grinding of one tectonic plate against another was released in a spasm of energy rivaling the full complement of nuclear weapons on the Earth in power. The shock of the release surges through the crust of the planet, sweeping out in all directions, but the brunt of that energy was borne by the nearby island, specifically near its capitol, Port-au-Prince. In one moment, the earth surged and bucked and swelled, and poorly constructed buildings collapse in great numbers, trapping tens of thousands under tons of rubble, filling the streets with frightened survivors, and crippling an already underdeveloped and overwhelmed country.

This disaster is a combination of the worst parts of 9/11, the Asian Tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina, for beyond the death toll is the sheer destruction left in its wake. Power severed, communications cut, water nonexistent, hospitals either collapsed or swamped with the wounded and dying, government crushed under the weight of its own buildings, and even the United Nations forces buried in the rubble. The sole major airport in Port-au-Prince damaged, left without the means to operate properly, the port smashed into wreckage and made unusable.

Given the magnitude of events, the response must be on an even greater scale, but there are serious problems to surmount, and time ticks away. After 72 hours, those trapped in the rubble who remain unrescued or even unfound, will start to die, adding to an already horrific toll. The scenes show thousands of people, with little or nothing left, tearing at bricks, concrete, and steel with bear hands and any implement they can find, desperate to help those who remain pinned beneath the rubble. Aid organizations already in the country have exhausted their supplies, and can only make due with anything they can scrounge until help arrives, help slowed by the destruction of infrastructure and the lack of proper facilities for handling the massive flood of people and material required.

One cannot help but feel their heart break, to see the suffering and misery, and be unable to simply scoop these pour souls up, feed them, house them, and mend their wounds. That we could all simply drop what we are doing and run to the rescue is a dream, but we must do what we can. We must do our human duty, in whatever way we can, whether it be money, supplies, or manpower, and help this nation. We cannot, however, simply help them now and in the coming weeks. If anything good can be said to come of this, it is the idea that not only can we help these people through their time of fear and need, we can actually help to repair and improve and bolster this formerly disregarded nation, to make it better, to give its people a better chance to live a decent life, and to provide them with the means to help themselves in the future. We must not abandon this opportunity when it becomes inconvenient; this disaster is the direct result so many previously missed opportunities. If we are to prevent this from happening again, we must not simply prop Haiti up -- we must help it move forward.

The Needs Of The Many

Roughly 6.5 billion people inhabit the Earth. It is a staggering number, given the limited amount of land suitable for easy habitation and the irregularity of abundance of natural resources. Add to this the seasonal fluctuations, which bring forth habitability changes, and the dynamic weather, and the spread of humanity across the globe is even more remarkable. True, there are other species with larger numbers, and with perhaps greater reach, but none other than Homo sapiens has shown an ability to move beyond the simple forces of nature and evolution, to control its own destiny.

Yet, for our ability to circumvent the natural systems that govern our planet, we are still slaves to the legacy of our ancestors, whose fight for survival was more contentious, more cutthroat, more subject to the vagaries of change. That we are here is testament to their stamina, endurance, and cunning, as their knowledge of the world they lived in was limited, and the vast expanses before them held dangers aplenty. With no ability to predict future events, subject to the whims of a restless planet, somehow they grew, thrived, and were able to begin to wrest a living from the earth, to escape the endless cycles of forced hardship. Even so, they were forced by their environment to adapt, to build behaviors that protected them, allowed them security and growth. Though the forces which shaped those behaviors have been vastly mitigated in millions of years, their impact on us remains.

Our ancestors had to be cautious, conservative, mindful that their group was one of many fighting for scarce resources. Strangers -- those not of the same tribe -- were regarded with suspicion and hostility. Where two groups came into contact, each was made wary of the other, and no doubt, where a resource (food, water, shelter) was coveted by more than one group, there was fighting. In the end, those groups that contained the most adaptable, most adept members, grew stronger, while others died out. This continued throughout millions of years, honing the faculties and skills of the progenitors of Homo sapiens, eventually leading to the humanity we see today. And while we have advanced far beyond anything our ancestors might have dreamed of, we have not shaken the same instincts and behaviors that guided them through the tortuous landscape that was primitive Earth.

We still look on those who are "unlike" us with wariness and hostility. Our desire to hoard resources to ensure our survival, while depriving others of those resources to weaken them, is inherent in our social, economic, and foreign policy. We still fight over those resources, though on a vastly larger scale than those human tribes that roamed the plains eons ago. Even when we live in abundance, we squander it, failing to prepare for what may come, reveling in the simple pleasure of having, as if to have these things means they will always be available. We feel that the things that make us powerful are somehow anointed, given sacred form, and make us more worthy than those who do not have the same things or do not share the same beliefs.

Our advancement as a species equipped us with the mental horsepower to shape and mold our world, to form communities and civilizations, to harness previously unfathomable energies, to move beyond the simple mechanisms of natural selection, and to weather changes in the environment that previously would have crippled our ability to survive. Even so, while the mind has been turned to worthwhile pursuits, and has brought us the marvels that fueled our growth and expansion, we continue to drag along the dead weight of our ancestral behaviors. No amount of mental computing power has seen fit to erase them.

They plague us still, these demons of ancestry. They are the impetus behind bigotry, racism, narcissism, greed, violence, lust, and the need for power. To each of these, a primal emotion attaches itself, overriding the reason and logic of the cerebral cortex, stimulating us at our very core, filling us with fear, envy, loathing, and spurring us to actions that have no place in the enlightened society that our advancement has supposedly led us to. We are not tribes, circling a dwindling watering hole, fighting for survival; we are a species with knowledge and power, capable of forging the infrastructure that ensures that no member of humanity need go without. We have left the dry, barren, dusty plains, and ascended to the lushness of cool, green forests, running water, and bountiful harvests. Still, at the margins, the dry rot of the millennia remains, gripping us amidst our cornucopia. We become petty, insular, unreasoning, savage, treating each other as no better than the animals we arose from, all the while guarding our territory, hoarding our precious commodities, striving to be the last standing amongst our peers.

If we are to succeed fully, to grow beyond the simple savagery, then we must shake off the chains that tie us to a distant and primal past. Our new brain, with all its gifts, must assert dominance over our primitive brain, which stood us in good stead in the past. We must forgo fear, anger, hatred, division, and dogma, if we are to become more than a mere collection of people, but a singular humanity, with a reach that extends far beyond our atmosphere. The longer we wallow in the mud, the less likely we are to survive what lies ahead, and the disasters that lie before us pale to those we know today. We have the capacity to move beyond simple existence, to place a stamp upon the universe. To do so, will require the acknowledgment that we are not few, but many, and that the needs of the many must be met if we are to survive.

Historically Inaccurate

There has been some confusion of late, in the media, and by extension the general populace, about the difference between President Barack Obama and the late, not-so-lamented Führer und Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler. So let's set the record straight:

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Adolf Hitler rose to his position by being elected Chancellor of Germany in an election marred by violence and the suppression of other parties, through the use of his personal mob, the SA (known as the "Brown Shirts"). He then manipulated President Hindenburg to call a series of elections, which allowed the National Socialists to solidify their power, and then upon the President's death, simply assumed his powers by fiat.

Barack Obama became President of the United States based on the results of a fair election.

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Adolf Hitler began a series of moves to expand Germany, starting with the takeover of Austria and Czechoslovakia, followed up in 1939 by the invasion of Poland, which formally began WWII.

Barack Obama has made no attempts to annex foreign territory and has engaged in a systematic campaign to end the war in Iraq, and finish successfully, the war in Afghanistan, while attempting to open dialogs with several "hostile" nations.

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Adolf Hitler openly called for and approved a systematic campaign of genocide against groups within Germany that he felt were responsible for Germany's humiliating defeat in WWI, the collapse of the German economy during the Wiemar period, or were affronts to his ideas of "Aryan supremacy": Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, Communists, the mentally and/or physically disabled, etc.

Barack Obama has begun a systematic process of bringing previously disenfranchised groups more into the fold, hiring more women and minorities for high positions in the Federal Government and encouraging people who are poor or unemployed to seek education to improve their chances of securing good jobs, while simultaneously trying to invest in new areas to provide economic growth.

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Adolf Hitler rebuilt Germany's economy by his "Four-Year Plan," which encouraged German industry to switch to the building of armaments and supporting the growth of Germany through the use of military strength.

Barack Obama is attempting to rebuild America's economy by infusing it with Federal funds, encouraging the development of new technologies and new industries, keeping financial markets and banks stable, and helping the auto industry weather the economic storm rather than add millions to the unemployment rolls.

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Adolf Hitler abandoned diplomacy in 1938 and based his foreign policy on Germany's relative strength and technological superiority.

Barack Obama has attempted to restore diplomacy between the United States and the world, and has tried to de-emphasize America's might.

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Adolf Hitler surrounded himself with toadies, boot-lickers, and sycophants, who were eager to do his bidding and would never question his judgment, no matter how bad it was.

Barack Obama has surrounded himself with smart people, who can engage him in lively and intelligent debate, and give him the information he needs to make tough decisions.

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Adolf Hitler seized the assets of people he did not like, denied citizens their due process, encouraged a climate of fear, and promoted the superiority of one race (while not meeting the high standards set for it, himself) over all others.

Barack Obama has tried to be bi-partisan, inclusive, and has not denied the right of any group to disagree with him or his policies, all the while trying top provide for the general welfare of the American people as a whole.

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There. I hope that clears things up.