The US is huge and probably has the most diverse population among all industrialized nations. We should all understand and embrace the different currents and eddies coursing through the American cultural ocean, but they’re just that, parts of an American cultural experience. “Black culture,” “Irish culture,” “Italian culture,” “Jewish culture,” and many others belong to the past and are part of American culture now. To dwell on these ingredients thrown into our grand melting pot is to live in a past, one that has often been full of social injustice, hatred, and violence. We should get past the past and move on to discover a better future.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, massive emigrations from Europe to the US led to many atrocities like those committed against Irish and Italians, but now we seem to have grouped them all together as “white culture,” and now too many pit that against “black culture.” I suppose there’s some historical logic to this because of the slave trade, although historically African tribes enslaving members of other African tribes was at least as common as white men enslaving other vanquished white men if they didn’t wipe out all the males on the losing side. Human beings had a habit of doing horrible things to other human beings, and still do.

But what of that “black culture”? Is a Haitian or Jamaican American part of black culture? Can black culture be found among those blacks “imported” by Great Britain from the West Indies provinces to reconstruct Britain after World War II? The answer to both questions is no. Perhaps these women, men, and children brought some of their local traditions with them—without them we wouldn’t have some of our wonderful music, art, and other creations—but to those questions’ answer I would add: These immigrants to the US and Britain added new currents to the culture of those two countries.

Recently someone wanted a new definition of racism. Merriam-Webster’s definition might be lacking, but I’m inclined to believe they’re probably incompetent about coming up with an all-inclusive one. Racism as well as culture both transcend national boundaries now, whether we like the first or not. Human beings treat other human beings badly, often to the extent that violence and murders result. But racism isn’t just against blacks, although there are far too many cases of that. No one has created a holocaust against blacks, but Hitler’s Germany did against Jews. Or even earlier with the Ottoman Empire’s genocide perpetrated against Armenians. Racism is more that a Buddhist majority in Myanmar slaughtering the Rohingya minority. It’s not what happened in the old Yugoslavia. It’s about all those incidents in history where one group attacks, enslaves, and often tries to exterminate another group.

Racism is an extreme expression of us-against-them tribal mentality. It’s also an evil negation of our common humanity, a dehumanization of a perceived opponent often driven by stupidity,  superstition, or fanaticism (that “or” isn’t an exclusive one by any means). When racism is part of culture, we’re in trouble. Pitting “black culture” against “white culture,” when neither really exists—only American culture exists—is indicative of a sick America. And this can be seen around the world too. Us-vs-them often resides in many geopolitical situations and is the fallback for most autocratic leaders and wannabe dictators who look for scapegoats to cover up their failures.

In these troubling times, the news cycles have forgotten to convey, except in a few brief moments, the excitement about a new way to get back into space. Those heroic pioneers onboard the International Space Station have gone beyond Earth’s atmosphere, leaving behind the nationalist competition that defined the early space race; they’re there for science and exploration, representing the world now. Looking down, they have ample evidence to convince them the following is now the right way to look at things: Earth is a beautiful home for human beings, all human beings, and we should all learn to get past all those eddies and currents of our individual nations’ culture to move forward in the realization that there is only one culture, world culture, the culture of all human beings.

Maybe I’m naive. I can imagine people reading this op-ed thinking so. But I’ve always thought Martin Luther King Junior’s wish for a colorblind American and world could come true. I couldn’t see any logical reason for it not to happen. As a pacific activist in the sixties (back then, police even suspected anyone with a beard—moi—as a trouble-maker, especially in the South), I fully expected it to happen before my life ended. I didn’t think it was that big a thing to worry about (general civil rights issues and the Vietnam War were more important causes). I was wrong. Progress was made, just not enough. We’re still going at it, sometimes in old ways and sometimes creating new ones, and I’m sad for our country and world because the old wounds are still as raw as the new ones. None have really healed, even though there’s a lot of scar tissue because a lot of good people have tried to make it so. Perhaps new generations will have more success.

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Comments are always welcome.

Prequel cameos. Sometimes characters from already existing novels clamor for their own…and my muses (really banshees with Tasers) listen to them! Esther Brookstone and Bastiann van Coevorden of the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series are examples, in this case thanks to “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco.”

Esther appeared in The Collector and Bastiann appeared in both Aristocrats and Assassins and Gaia and the Goliaths. Esther’s prequel cameo is part of the story of how stolen art can be used to finance other evil activities, in this case porn videos. Bastiann’s first prequel cameo occurs when Castilblanco, on vacation with his wife, gets involved with a terrorist who’s kidnapping European royals. His second occurs when he’s helping track down the murdering head of an energy conglomerate.

You don’t need these cameos to understand Esther’s series, but they’re evergreen books you will have fun reading. Available on Amazon and Smashwords and all the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and library and lending services (Scribd, Overdrive, Baker & Taylor’s, Gardners, etc.). “Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.”—Mason Cooley.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020 at 3:22 am and is filed under OpEds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.