A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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I was walking to my car in the darkened parking lot of one of America's Big Box stores when I suddenly realized why the jury found George Zimmerman not guilty. Fear.
No. I mean REAL FEAR. The kind of fear ingrained in ones bones. The kind of fear that has been with us so long we no longer know we are even a host for it.
During the days of slavery in America, the slave owners lived with this same fear. Once slavery was rendered illegal in America then the entire country fell victim to the same raw fear.
Some 700,000 Americans died in a civil war fought in the name of that fear, if you believe accepted history. I don't. But that's a different story for a different article, on a different day.
All the American Civil War proved, if it proved anything at all, is that -- you cannot GIVE a people freedom. It has no value as a gift. It is not cherished because it was not earned.
One hundred and fifty years down the road from that war and the descendents of those freed slaves are little better off than they were when they trailed behind Sherman's army begging for morsels of food as Sherman smashed and burned his way through the southern states. The mold for the next century and a half was set at that moment.
Nothing much has changed since. The only thing of substance that HAS changed is that now, rather than being thankful for freedom, the descendents of those freed slaves, despise white Americans for, as I believe THEY see it, FORCING them to feel beholden to white America.
Understand: There will NEVER be an open and honest debate in America about black and white racism. NEVER. Neither side can handle the truth. Neither side will face the truth -- and neither side wants the debate.
White America is fed up. We long since gave up the notion that the black community wanted equality and justice. White America is now convinced that black America wants nothing less than to punish white Americans for something for which they (Today's white Americans) bear no guilt.
White America has shut its ears. We are tired of the nagging, the bitching and moaning, the weeping and wailing, the refusal to take personal responsibility, the continuous demands that America owes them something, hell, EVERYTHING, the continuous complaining, and repeated threats, the unruly, uncivilized, conduct of a people who insist on remaining apart, even to hyphenating the name of their race to accentuate and perpetuate their "apartness."
One hundred and fifty years has been squandered. It is gone. A century and a half just tossed aside while the remainder of the country scratched and clawed its way to, at least, some level of success.
In the middle of the 20th century America tried again to jump start the black community with every kind of social program and entitlement program it could afford -- and a few it couldn't -- to, hopefully, get our black brethren and sisteren into the mix so that they, too, might become upwardly mobile. It didn't work. It was not enough, it STILL is not enough -- and now we are convinced it will never BE enough.
The expression: "riding a good horse into the ground" seems apprapo to this situation. But this horse is about ready to throw its rider.
That fear I mentioned at the beginning of this commentary is what was. long ago, thought of as the fear of a slave uprising. These days we call it by different names: riots, race riots, civil disobedience, mob violence, etc. It amounts to the same thing. It is a deep seated fear that should such an "uprising" occur, it will be seem, by both sides as an opportunity, and an excuse, to take out their frustrations on the other side while reducing the population of each side by generous numbers.
Police will be quickly overwhelmed.
But that is only a part of the underlying fear. The remainder is that once the blood lust is up there will be nationwide genocide.
Now, I know I am going be be vilified for having the temerity to actually make public the thoughts of millions of Americans today. There's not much tolerance for truth these days.
The rage on both sides of the racial divide is bubbling just below the surface and a small prick can, and most likely will, release the toxins of hate an anger into our national atmosphere.
I think the members of the jury in the Zimmerman trial understood WHY Zimmerman was suspicious of a young black man, wearing a hoodie, and strolling the avenues of a residential community late at night, a community that had suffered a number of burglaries and break-ins in the recent past committed by young black men. Anyone NOT suspicious would, of necessity, have to be mentally detached from reality.
Consider this from Bernie Goldberg: " ... but he was looked upon with suspicion because, as painful as it is to acknowledge, he looked like too many other black kids in hoodies who do bad things. Black people know this better than anyone else. They’re the victims of most black crime. Remember what Jesse Jackson said several years back. “There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.” Does that make the Reverend Jackson a racist – or a realist?" SOURCE: http://www.bernardgoldberg.com/zimmerman-is-not-guilty-what-about-the-media/?utm_source=BernardGoldberg.com+Newsletter&utm_campaign=fc74eee89b
I think the jury may have felt, as did so many, the Zimmerman trial was a "show trial" designed as an attempt to placate the black community into not burning down the city.
I suspect that those women had, on occasion, seen young black men strolling aimlessly through their communities and hastened to check the locks on their doors and windows and clasp their phones in fear moistened hands waiting to dial 911 at the first sound. How many people living in today's cities and urban centers have not felt this fear in recent years?
Most of us today live behind closed and locked doors in our homes, even though we know, deep down, that those locks provide no real deterrent to those set upon smashing their way into our place of refuge and taking everything we have -- including our lives and the lives of our loved ones -- without a second thought.
I believe all this was coursing through the mental process of those jurors as they decided the fate of Mr. Zimmerman.
We may also find that the "Neighborhood Watch" program is ended. Who, in their right mind, will want to subject themselves, and their families and loved ones. to the denigration Mr.Zimmerman and his family have suffered for some eighteen months -- and -- the probability of living under a death threat for the remainder of their lives as Mr. Zimmerman is sure to do?
It struck me recently, that America is beginning to look more and more like South Africa. Consider this: "In my opinion,America’s future will not resemble its past, but will look more like today’s South Africa. As the number of whites declines, loss of power will follow, leading to aggressive legislation pushing whites out of jobs and most positions of power. Many whites will emigrate or move to the remaining red states, just as South Africa’s whites have emigrated since 1994. But ultimately there will be no place to go, as the global demographic decline of whites means that even European countries suffer the same fate of dispossession." SOURCE: http://www.amren.com/opinion/2012/11/will-the-us-follow-south-africa-down-the-path-of-white-decline/
The article continues: "... The United States is such a military and economic power that the battle now taking shape within its borders could well determine the fate of the West. ... " SOURCE: http://www.amren.com/opinion/2012/11/will-the-us-follow-south-africa-down-the-path-of-white-decline/
So -- here we go again, lurching from one crisis to another as we wait for the federal government to find some excuse, any excuse, to inject itself into this mess making it ten times worse.
OK. So we have touched on some things that are simply not talked about in public by polite society today. But being polite is getting us steamrolled! At some point one must drop the socially accepted facade and defend one's self -- or -- face a tragic end.
“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.” ― Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I think Ms. Stanton had it about right.
© J. D. Longstreet
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