The Socio-Historical Stain that Refuses to Go Away.
Sihanoukville, Cambodia, December 5th, 2014.
Salaroche


In 21st century America an unarmed black man can be killed by the police for illegally selling common cigarettes in the streets (for selling cigarettes?) and the policeman responsible for the killing isn’t even indicted for it. An unarmed black man can be walking down the streets in the night and be shot to death by a policeman who later is also allowed to walk scot free unindicted.

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America…” says the pledge of allegiance, “one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

I don’t know about you, but to me it looks like the question of whether “justice for all” is a principle presently applied equally to all Americans is highly debatable. Would the policemen in question have been exonerated so easily had they been black and the victims white? Would the victims in both cases have been killed in such an unwarranted manner had they both been white?

And the answer to those two questions is a resounding NO!

And what about the Grand Juries that didn’t find fault in those officers’ lethal behavior? Were those juries formed by people of different ethnicities? By people from different walks of life? By people with no direct interest in shielding the police department from negative exposure? For some reason, it seems that the answer to those questions would also be a definitive no.

No doubt about it. Racial relations in America are still the nagging social blemish that after decades of struggle still refuses to go away. To begin with, there seems to be an embedded, publicly-seldom-spoken Orientalist notion still prevailing in some American Anglo-Saxon circles that perpetuates the view that the human value of anyone possessing physical characteristics different from theirs has to be lower than theirs.

A good portion of the American white masses is still very conservative in their perception of racial relations. They still seem to share in that socially and historically inherited partially-subconscious agreement whereby people of any other ethnic ancestry, particularly those of African extraction, should not be entitled to the same civil and human rights as they do and therefore need to be brought back into submission one way or another, particularly through judicial means and public displays of brutality in the hands of white police forces.

Am I being unfair to my white brethren in stating such notions? I don't think so. But if I were, how else could you explain the recent two judicial instances in which two white policemen were let go unindicted after killing two unarmed black individuals in a display of totally unwarranted use of white police brutality?

Just think about it. Had those instances occurred in Hong Kong, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, or China, wouldn’t they have been repeatedly denounced in the western media as proof of the brutality of those regimes? Wouldn’t human rights organizations have loudly cried foul at the top of their lungs across all the available world media?

Black people, of course, are not totally free of responsibility regarding the racial issue. There is sometimes a palpable resentment in African American circles not only against white people, but also against Latinos and people of Asian extraction, whom they rightfully perceive as rivals in the American job market.

There are frequent instances of perceptible hostility among black circles against whites, from whom they often expect some kind of retribution for the injustices of the past. And even when they cannot categorize the other races populating the American social landscape as white, many blacks don’t hesitate to characterize some of them as “whitey”, term that might bring hostility down a couple of notches, but still remains considerably antagonistic.

Without a doubt, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latin-Americans, Russian-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Chinese-Americans, French-Americans, and any other social groups of any other ethnic extraction, interact among themselves in ways that differ from each other and from the way strictly Anglo-Americans do.

If the “American” suffix defining us all implies a common basic understanding of the democratic and pluralistic ideals intrinsic in the concept of “America”, why is it so difficult to bring theory into practice? Why are many whites still so reluctant to accept the black way of being? Why do blacks often reciprocate that attitude in a corresponding manner? Why can’t Blacks, Latinos, and Asians think together as a cluster of minority groups and exert their voting power to change judicial inequities of the sort we have just witnessed in Staten Island and Ferguson?

The answer to those questions is probably as simple as you may be thinking: Because each and all of those groups are ethnically, culturally, and socially different from each other, therefore unable to identify with each other, which makes them unable to fully accept and fully cooperate with each other.

But to focus on the differences between ethnic groups is a rather easy task, particularly when ethnicity is easily detected in the color of the skin or in the facial features. Finding common ground across ethnic lines is a different story. That’s an effort that requires a vision of the future based on a concept of nationality that transcends superficial barriers and intentionally centers on the overarching good of the country.

Unfortunately, denial of racial motivations in sociopolitical, judicial, or financial activities springs to the forefront whenever the issue is brought into conversation or debate. For example, just go ask some Republicans whether a good reason for their being so antagonistic to the President of The United States is the President’s ethnicity and they will indignantly refuse to answer and will accuse you of using the race card against them for political reasons. At that point most critics will immediately back down and retract their question as if remembering an unspoken agreement not to tread down the racial path.

Clearly, the issue of race in America is not as superficial as some may think. It has philosophical roots that, according to some recent deadly events, still result in serious contemporary implications. In a way, America’s reluctance to address the race issue head on is comparable to the Japanese efforts to hide some of the abuses they committed in Southeast Asia during most of the first half of the 20th century.

There is a couple of defining differences between the two cases, though. First, the Japanese inflicted injuries on people residing in foreign nations (i.e., China, South Korea, etc.) whereas the US sociopolitical and judicial system inflicted in the past and, to a much lesser degree, keeps inflicting in the present injuries to people residing within its borders. This makes it that the issue doesn’t cause in Japan the racial tensions it causes in the US.

Second, the Japanese effort to ignore their offenses is a conscious one that they try to enforce by revising the history books and other similar tricks. In America, on the other hand, the effort seems to be some sort of subconscious endeavor carried on by means of willful disregard or willful ignorance, as if there were deeply-seated epistemological deficiencies in their refusal to admit the presence of the Racial Elephant standing in the middle of the American living room.

Along those lines, influential American Political Philosophers continue to ignore the subject of race as if it were an issue of the past that no longer matters much in the present. Yet, the many popular demonstrations we have recently witnessed against the decision of the Grand Juries in question attest to the contrary, thereby showing that prominent Philosophers like Rawls and Fukuyama have to a good measure, willingly or unwillingly, missed the boat. Why go around elaborating grandly on ideal societies, as those two guys have done, when the current one keeps suffering from sociopolitical ailments impossible to overlook?

In the view of some of us, such philosophical blindness and omissions only come to reinforce the latent white-supremacist Orientalist idea that to different degrees still plagues some influential American Anglo-Saxon circles. And as long as American philosophers and politicians continue to stand on such grounds of denial, racial relations will continue to contaminate the American social environment for many years to come.

Salaroche