An inordinate number of under-educated and rough-hewn African Americans populate an inordinate number of penal institutions – within, reputedly, one of the most advanced societies in human history. In our zeal to put the real cause of this anomaly behind us, once again we pretend that we are not a society built upon centuries of degrading and shunting to the margins a considerable portion of our population.
Charles Darwin showed how species of living organisms develop physically and mentally in response to their environment. During the Second Punic War, Hannibal outmaneuvered the Romans by going through the Alps. As he was losing many of his men and most of his elephants in this audacious act, he was further impeded by savage tribes raining down rocks from above. Some of those rock-throwers became the Franks, who later developed the French Civilization.
The populace of the Japanese Islands was so culturally inbred and isolated, that we trained upon Tokyo the guns of a warship and bade them join the world economy. These were delicate and unified people who managed their impacted living through ritual ceremony and exaggerated courtesy. After we disturbed their slumber, they became such a nemesis to Russia, the Philippines, Korea, China – and ultimately ourselves – that we were required to make them the protagonists of a most terrible Kabuki play of our own production.
In contrast to those hapless, incarcerated African Americans, there are others of their lot who better survived the centuries of degradation and marginalization. Even while recognizing the relative difference in their survival, these lawyers, surgeons, scientists, educators and artists realize that the chain of that centuries-long bondage of mind and spirit is not easily broken. The dilemma is the difficulty in transmitting that reality to those still-in-denial descendents of those who brought it about.
Voilà, the pathology! Our society is the patient. In order to cure ourselves, we shall have to overcome that which is, thus far, unthinkable and unutterable. That is why the Attorney General called us poltroons; deep within, we know we have this malady, but we cannot summon the courage to confront it. Beyond the noble, but feeble efforts of the coffee magnagte, we must seek a more formal and enduring effort. Notable in that regard are the Truth and Reconciliation Committees established in South Africa after its own, devastating experience in the satanic art of Apartheid. Nothing will be resolved if we continue creeping through this field of landmines, instead of calling in the minesweepers and clearing the field.
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Pathology gotin quite late.
It put out a snack on the plate.
When it turned around,
Sans even a sound,
Its other self everything ate!
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