Part 1 [6 min.]

MUSHROOMS

In the past, I felt frustrated in my efforts to help those outside find their way in so they could share in the wealth. I honestly thought that all they needed to know was how to do it. I came to realize that in order to do it, they would have to join white America in perpetuating their newly-achieved status as insiders by actively participating in the subjection of the very group on the outside from which they had just emerged. This is exactly what Japan, Korea, and Singapore are now doing on an international scale. We spread capitalism, not democracy.

Missionary types preaching the message of assimilation are increasingly ignored by today's minorities in this country. Gone are the days when liberal bleeding-hearts can select a particular minority as "their people," cull the cream into the bubble, and ignore the plight of the "inferior" rest. This invitation to compromise the ideals of human equality is repugnant to Americans of color. They know that white Americans have always considered them to be members of populations which can produce only a few people "worthy of elite status." It is cold comfort to them to know that we white Americans are being deceived by our own leaders.

My frustration had turned to anger. I felt like a professional boxer who has just discovered that he is the champion only because the boxing commission has been fixing his fights. Further, he has found that there is nothing he can do about it from the inside. He has a choice. He can either close his eyes, accept the falsity of his pride, sit back and enjoy the ride; or he can opt out of the profession, and try to reform the commission. I realized that the system is fixed. There is no way to correct the problems from within it, even by the use of our democratic processes, because the means of prevention have been in place since the founding of the country.

I am angry that I cannot speak simply as a human being who happens to be an American. The "establishment" has made sure that I can only speak as a a white American. We have never been allowed to listen to those who have told the truth, because they were immediately branded as subversives, anarchists or even psychopaths.

I am an average white American who does not aspire to be a leader. I only want to know and share the truth. And, I am not alone.

Yet, in raising my children, I shared, unwittingly, in the cleverly designed double-standard which, while nominally blind to skin color, nevertheless defines the quality of humanity and citizenship by Euro centric (white) economic (capitalistic) criteria. This is nothing less than white supremacy, white racism, disguised by lip service to ideals of equality and fair play. Its purpose is to keep Americans of color out of the mainstream so that they can continue to provide cheap labor for our economic system.

Depending, as it does, upon despoiling the weak and disadvantaged, capitalism may be compared to rape. And, rape prevention is not served by preaching to rape victims the mistaken notion that rape is a legitimate punishment for certain actions, or dress, ("She asked for it....That's what you get when...."). Neither is it served by burdening the victims with the education or reform of the rapist. Further, just as the hypocrisy and ignorance of the general public often justifies – even champions - the rapist, so the ignorance of American whites justifies the racial, ethnic, cultural and class divisions upon which capitalism is based.

Our public and private institutions cling stubbornly to a whole range of mistaken assumptions about humanity and history which supports and feeds this ignorance. The changes necessary to remove these inequities will be sweeping, profound, even drastic. But, just as with the rapist, change must be initiated by the perpetrator, not the victim; by white America, not the victims of racism.

I cannot presume to preach to people of color. I can only help them by telling other white Americans what is being done to Americans of color in our name. Most Americans of color are fully aware of the inequities of their country, since they are its victims. American Indians have been telling us about it for centuries.

And if, even after learning the truth, we are happy with things the way they are, then we must abandon the charade of equality, democracy, freedom, and admit to the world, and ourselves, that we are not unique in the community of nations as we have for centuries advertised ourselves to be; that we are at heart, after all the layers of false patriotism are peeled back, simply race patriots. Worse, to justify our artificially achieved white majority, we would have to openly accept the ideals of the Ku Klux Klan, and other white supremacist groups, in their contention that the color of our skin, and the preference of a white God, do indeed, entitle us to enslave people of color not only in this country, but throughout the world.

Whether we know it or not – whether we accept it or not – we are all supporting an economic system which drives national policy and foreign policy to act upon that "divine right" to superiority. No such "right" is stated in our Constitution, or its amendments. In fact, our constitution rejects such "rights." These concepts of superiority come, rather, from the principles of capitalism – the partnership that wealthy merchants of the Renaissance forced upon the remaining feudal Lords of the middle Ages. The egalitarian principles of our Constitution come from those sixteenth and seventeenth century English and French philosophers who fought against the concentration of wealth among the privileged few. Thus, without realizing it, the people of the United states have fought for, and achieved, political and economic freedom for the wealthy. By the use of our democratic freedoms, we must now free ourselves and the rest of the world from the economic tyranny of capitalism.

[Go to Part 5]