Failing to make community makes all complicit
By Carolyn Bennett
 |
| Rough Undertow |
Tragedies happen and they happen all over the United States
of America because we cause them to happen. They don’t happen in isolation, separate
and distinct, without history. They don’t leap whole from television headline
news (which are often blatantly false, another story). Tragedies have deeply
rooted origins. So is the case of the Florida shooting tragedy. And the protests
or rather the SHOW that has followed the decision in the Martin-Zimmerman case is
silly, on their face; and, on a deeper level, it veils protesters’ complicity in
the tragedy.
Here’s how I see the Martin-Zimmerman effect-tragedy of causal-tragedy.
Failure to make community
 |
| Undertow Tsunami |
Many black people act as if they are apart from “America.” Many white people act as if they are apart from “others.” Either group is
likely to comment: but they are “white” or but they are “black” as if they are addressing
aliens from Mars. Both groups create ─ you might even say they conspire to create ─ a human and human relations void: an
off-putting, a standoff, an emotional off-limits. There is an undercurrent of
hostility and condescension, a passive aggressiveness in these groups, even an
irrational fear, paranoia, that drives and sustains separation (separatism). The “apart-from” syndrome reinforces the negative undercurrents and entrenched misconceptions,
stereotypes and deliberate delusions.
 |
| Dangerous Undertow |
This disuniting, circular, spiraling downward regression is a preexisting and persistent condition in America, an underlying and unattended tragedy.
Failure of sight
Together with a failure to make “community,” togetherness (for
the scope of this argument, I’m setting aside discontented lives due a depletion
of meaningful employment base and depressed economic times) is the deliberate,
hypocritical disregard of high crimes committed daily, with impunity.
The current U.S. president and a whole line of U.S.
presidents and legislators, through their official acts, can kill and maim thousands,
even millions of people, destroy their families and livelihoods. Destroy the peace
in West-Central Asia, Africa, the Middle East; and few Americans, white or
black (likely many among the weekend protesters), will raise a single word of
dissent.
Criminally oppressive corporations, religious and educational
institutions can abuse the human rights of more hundreds and thousands of
people, at home and abroad. And Americans, black and white and whatever, will continue
pouring their money (often on credit) into them, patronizing them, praying at their
altars (communities made casino debris, wreckage). When questioned, these “patriots”
and headlining “protesters” manufacture all kinds of excuses for their personal,
shoddy behavior. |
| U.S. consistently mistreats, disparages immigrants |
Failure to be human beings among human beings
Responsibility is imperative
Someone has said (maybe I said it) that the mantra “racism-racism-racism-racist-racist-racist”
is just too easy, too often and often irrelevant. And like anything repeated
over and over again it has become meaningless. Someone also said revenge is a lazy from of response to harm.
There are no innocents here. The protests post-trial
relative to the Martin-Zimmerman case are as pageantry in the White House Rose
Garden and in the sewer on Capitol Hill: it’s the SHOW ─ an insult, drama without substance, SHOW signifying nothing, except perhaps more hostility and
separatism: “those from those,” “us from them.”
Until “difference” (call it black-white, American-Muslim,
Protestant-Catholic, Jew-Gentile, call it whatever you like) sits at the table
with “difference” ─ and I’m not talking about “tolerance” (who wants to be
tolerated?) ─ until “difference” invites “difference” with complete acceptance sans
disparaging, judging or prejudging; until “difference” makes community, there
will be no end to consequential (headlined) tragedies and no honest examination
and elimination of underlying human relations conditions: causal tragedies.
 |
| Carefully taught |
It doesn't have to be this way. Whether we like it or not, the
quality and the character of society is our responsibility. We are responsible
for the actions of the United States of America. We are neither “alien” nor “other.” We are America, this United States of America. And our failure to take responsibility as human beings with and among human beings is our deepest and most destructive tragedy.
Protests and bloodletting ─ home and abroad USA
Monday July 15, 2013
Martin/Zimmerman case
“From Harlem to Union Square hundreds of demonstrators took
to the streets of New York on Sunday to protest the not guilty verdict in the
Trayvon Martin shooting by George Zimmerman.
“Late on Saturday, a jury of six women in Florida announced
that George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges in
Martin’s death. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, had admitted he shot
the unarmed 17-year-old but claimed it was in self-defense. While Zimmerman
left the court house a free man, many are calling for further investigations
into the Florida Killing. Protesters today say justice wasn't served.” http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/07/15/313852/outrage-in-us-over-trayvon-martin-death-amid-notguilty-verdict/
U.S. hostilities in Yemen
 |
| Yemenis protest U.S. |
“Rights group passes law to criminalize US killer drone
attacks in Yemen ─ A human rights organization has managed to pass a law in
Yemen’s National Dialogue Conferenc
e (NDC) to criminalize U.S. killer drone
strikes, Press TV reports.
“‘We managed to pass a law in the first phase of the outcome
of the National Dialogue [Conference], criminalizing the killing outside of law,
including drone strikes and targeted missiles,’ said Baraa Shiban, who is the
project coordinator for the London-based human rights organization Reprieve.” http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/07/15/313881/us-drone-attacks-in-yemen-criminalized/
 |
| Syrians protest Foreign interference |
U.S. hostilities in Syria
“U.S. and Qatar arm rival militant gangs in Syria amid slow
delivery of arms ─ Pointing to American troubles in preventing its arms to fall
into the hands of ‘extremists’ such as the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra front, U.S.
daily New York Times [reported] on Sunday that Washington’s key Persian Gulf
ally Qatar ‘is suspected’ of supplying weapons to ‘more hard-line’ groups in
Syria, ‘despite assurances to the contrary from Qatari officials.’” http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/07/15/313893/us-qatar-arming-rival-gangs-in-syria/
Sunday July 14, 2013
 |
| Pakistanis protest U.S. |
U.S. hostilities in PAKISTAN
“Pakistanis have staged an anti-U.S. demonstration in Punjab
Province to protest against the killing of innocent civilians by U.S.
assassination drone attacks. The major protest rally took place in the city of
Multan where demonstrators chanted slogans against the U.S. Reports say similar
protests were also held in other towns and cities of Punjab on Sunday.” http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/07/14/313793/pakistanis-protest-us-drone-strikes/
____________________________________________________
Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
____________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment