As a free people we founded this country on the melting pot theory, yet where did it go? Have we, in our conquest for genocide like behavior, actually gone forward with that thought beyond the paper it’s printed on? If the educational institutions can influx their curriculum with more factual histories instead of the histories written by the conquers, the truth would become a benefit and a resource for the education of a more thoughtful nation. Can you imagine going into a class room for a history lesson on pre-white America taught by a Native American? The students, through the teacher and his knowledge, might come to understand the history of a people that believed in the power of the self and the world around them. Can you imagine a bible literature class taught by a Buddhist monk? Talk about a different interpretation. What would he say of Jesus Christ? Possibly that he was a good story teller.
The important thing to think about and to remember is that we as a race of man need to be able to move past our petty squabbling and look towards the future for our children and their children. We need to break free of the barriers of racial and even religious animosity and move towards the love that we as a people can feel towards one another if we only allow ourselves the chance. As a race of man and woman and in one voice we need to stand up against the hate mongers and love killers and say to them, and to each other, that we want to believe in our common man and trust him with our love. We need to break down the walls of cold war animosity and look to each other for help in recapturing this beautiful planet, and in recapturing ourselves. We need more institutions of enlightenment and education, not hate and fear.
Why is it that when we send an individual to jail, an institution of hate and fear, and then he/she comes out after serving their sentence and are better criminals? Look at what we do to them. We as a society send them to a walled and segregated arena of hate and fear. A place where there are hunters and prey, a place where we can put them behind bars, out of eyesight and earshot, and forget they exist. Years go by, and when we feel that they have served their time for their crime we thrust them back into a world that doesn’t want them and a society that has no use for them. We need to break the cycle of shame, abuse, and terror. We as a race must become enlightened and educated so we can instill the correct ethics and moral standing within each individual on Earth.
The main point is that love and understanding can only come from true education from the people involved in the persecution and oppression in our society. Would Rodney King have been beaten so brutally if the cops in question had been all black men? As posed in the question for this essay, it’s a matter of demographics. We, the white’s , came to this country and persecuted everyone of other color and ethnic distinctions because of fear. When we had that under control we imported people to become prejudice against. Yet are white people somehow exempt from prejudice? No. The man that was beaten so brutally with a brick when dragged from his truck by the black youths in the LA riots was a kind person. After the trials he was seen embracing the mother of the boy that had beaten him. He and the mother were enlightened by love and not historical stories of hate and fear. Love is what needs to be addressed, not the majority in power at this or any future time. We need love for ourselves, for each other, and love for our planet. When we can achieve that end we have moved beyond the need for racial discussions, and are vaulted into the realms of the unknown.
Yet that distant horizon is not unknown to me. It is a horizon that stretches toward a future of understanding between colors. It is a horizon that seems to beckon even now to me with a song, an echo of future possibilities. Listen carefully. You can hear it if you want to, if your able. It’s the echo of that song, a minuscule and barely audible portion that sings of love and understanding.
In the immortal words of John Lennon “All we need is love”. You know what? John was right all along. All we need is love, that and nothing else.
