As
America celebrated 240-years of "democracy" on July 4, 2016, the
longstanding tradition of hero-worshiping Thomas Jefferson continued.
Meanwhile, as the slaughter of Black people continues in parallel
tradition, America tends to disassociate the 18th-century racism and
violence of its founders from 21st-century racism and violence of its
followers.
Ezrah Aharone |
Let
me however state three points that are indispensable yet absent from
today's public discourse regarding democracy and racism. First,
21st-century racism needs to be redefined in modern connotations based
on historical "processes and outcomes."
Second,
contrary to common perceptions, chattel slavery was not simply a matter
of depriving Black people of freedom via chains and laws, whereby the
solution simply involved the removal of chains and the ratifying of new
laws.
Third,
Jeffersonian Democracy (America's founding practices and ideals as
pretensed in the Declaration of Independence by Jefferson himself) is
erected upon an "unprincipled relationship" which Euro-Americans have
historically superimposed upon Black America as norms with virtual
impunity.
By
"unprincipled" I mean that Jeffersonian Democracy is deliberately
designed with dishonest ways and deceptive practices that have proven
insufficient and unsuitable to redress the racial complexities it
deliberately created, while Euro-Americans have benefited in
consequence. Hence, Black people have struggled incessantly for
centuries on political hamster wheels to somehow show "worthiness" to
wear the coveted badge of Americanization that they regulate.
Thus
in redefining modern racism I assert that "the unprincipled nature of
this relationship is both racism and the purveyor of racism" . . .
everything else is symptomatic. This same "unprincipledness" breeds
dense denial, apathy, and snobbery as personified by people like Rudolph
Giuliani (Republicans and Democrats alike) whose thickheaded
orientation to race is perched eye-level with the sociopathic-like
tendencies of many founders. To them, despite its inhumanities,
Jeffersonian Democracy has always been a sanctified force of good,
goodwill, and godliness that "civilized and blessed Africans to live in
the greatest country in the world."
But despite all pomp and religiosity, July 4, 1776 is a point of
origin where any sincere examination of racism and violence must begin.
This incubates the spot where chattel slavery and Jeffersonian
Democracy kissed as parent institutions that birthed perpetual
incarnations of racism that has mutated and merged into the norms of
society ever since, where nowadays you can watch pointblank shootings of
unarmed Black people by "law enforcement" on Facebook and YouTube.
Here is what cannot be denied: In 1776 the founders had the moral
authority and political opportunity to materialize true democracy. All
they had to do was self-apply the ideals they self-professed. Nobody
forced them or succeeding government administrations to enslave or
segregate or subhumanize anyone.
But
in the swashbuckling spirit of John Winthrop, they were driven by the
same aggression, exceptionalism, and profit motives that impelled
17th-century Europeans to cannonball themselves out of Europe seeking
cash crops and resources on indigenous lands of others. So in dual and
calculated fashions the founders not only constitutionalized "Black
life" as chattel, they also constitutionalized "gun rights" in part to
make slavery possible. Without guns, the scale of slavery would have
been impossible.
As
such, there are unbroken threads that stitch together centuries of
slavery and guns with violence and racism, when Black Lives [did not]
Matter . . . When Europeans flooded Africa with hundreds of thousands of
guns annually to capture and colonize Africans; when White men were
required to tote guns to church on Sundays in South Carolina by law;
when the Fugitive Slave Act of the constitution allowed Africans to be
hunted down by gunfire by law; when the 13th Amendment allowed Blacks to
be convict-leased and festively killed by law.
Chattel
slavery no longer exists but "unprincipledness" still corrodes the core
of race relations, even though integration somewhat window-dresses how
power gets visibly dispensed (similar to South Africa). Nevertheless,
once 18th-century "unprincipledness" became constitutional and
psychological, the proverbial train of Jeffersonian Democracy commenced
running full speed nonstop to racist destinations of 21st-century
disparities, disproportions, distrust, apathy and violence that now
plagues society.
So
in redefining modern racism, I further assert that the murder of Alton
Sterling, Philando Castile, and the 5 Dallas policemen along with the
robot-obliteration of Micah Johnson is not racism per se. Nor is the
murder of the 3 Baton Rouge policemen and Gavin Long racism per se.
They rather are emblematic of racism. They are derivative outgrowths of
racism. They are scabby byproducts of racism. They are natural
outcomes of "manmade unprincipledness" that was metaphorically baked
into the cake of Jeffersonian Democracy.
Modern
racism is then compounded by Black and White politicians (President
Obama included) who use paddycake language to dodge hard truths that
should otherwise be central to national discourse on race and democracy.
Trying
to address 21st-century racism without addressing its combustive
18th-century genesis is as insincere as a mugger who sends "Get Well
Soon" cards to those he hospitalized. Until modern racism -- in all its
multiforms of "unprincipledness" -- is systemically understood and
structurally confronted within the context of its political origin,
societal practices, and psychological reaches, the quest to alleviate
its ugly outgrowths and aftereffects will be as futile as the proverbial
dog chasing its tail . . . determinately yet unendingly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This article was culled in part from The Sovereign Psyche: Systems of Chattel Freedom vs. Self-Authentic Freedom
by Ezrah Aharone who is an adjunct associate professor of political
science at Delaware State University. He is also a political and
business consultant on African affairs, as well as the author of Sovereign Evolution and Pawned Sovereignty. He can be reached at www.EzrahSpeaks.com
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