The Time Has Come, the Walrus said ('Racing' to Armageddon)

It’s a crisp winter morning here in the land where it never rains (note: this is an injection of frivolous irony, since us ‘sunny’ Californios have been damp around the fringes for more than about a month, now). The squirrels that inhabit a habitat I constructed for them in the tree out front are fat & sassy, reveling in the $7.00/pound unsalted, mixed nuts I provide for them daily, and in fact the Mom squirrel presently inhabiting the dwelling has four small youngsters that pop out every now and then to graze on the bountiful plenty provided them. I may eventually become impoverished owing to the expensive squirrel feed I favor them with, but by Ghod they are the best fed & healthiest little Sciuridae rascals in the entire city of Suckatomato.

Squirrels are amazing little critters, witness the recent PBS special that delved exhaustively into their many fascinating characteristics and traits. Perfectly adapted to their habitats, regardless of weather or other potential natural disadvantages, their only real threat, it seems, are keen-eyed sharpshooters from West Virginny (where squirrel still constitutes a regular dinner staple for many families, so I am advised). For me, they constitute a never ending visual diversion when I interrupt my musings and gaze out the window of my study.

At any rate, it’s two weeks into the Christmas month with Winter Solstice just days away and all is (more or less) right (relatively speaking) in my personal world. Once again, as such an occasion warrants, I descend into the often dank, sometimes fetid recesses of my mind to periodically ponder the bazillions of unanswered questions that regularly threaten to crowd the few brain cells I still retain full control of right out of my head.

Last night, as is my lifelong unhappy custom, I awoke at about 2AM to find that the queue of troubling thoughts at the entrance to my conscious mind was already out the door and lined up around the block. At such times sleep completely eludes me and I find myself dragged, kicking and screaming below the surface of blissful, peaceful unconsciousness and downwards, lower and lower to the frigid, hoary, mid-world depths of nagging doubt, fears and chill insecurities, where such things take anxious, palpable, scary forms like deep-sea critters of repugnant countenance.

I had just awakened from an anxious dream in which, after taking a wild ride with two others on a motorcycle shaped like a perfectly square block of wood on wheels (go figure!) and hanging on for dear life, we came to a secluded, rustic mountain inn off the beaten track, where a small gang of colorful characters who initially appeared friendly changed suddenly into villainous vermin who kept us from leaving the place by imposing a horrifying condition: They would randomly call someone on the phone and ask them a question. If the respondent answered incorrectly, they would shoot off one of my toes. As the chief antagonist put it to me with a menacing sneer, “If you run out of toes, we’ll figure out something else…”

This is just an example of the sort of dreams I frequently find myself immersed in. I’m sure my shrink (if I had one) would have a field day with this sort of stuff…perhaps even write an essay on it for one of the journals!

So, there I am at zero-dark-thirty hours, wide awake, still figuratively spooked by the dream I momentarily emerged from. And into this temporal void, a series of thoughts immediately sprang into my now fully (and irretrievably) awake consciousness, accompanied by a small chorus of various snorts and snores from the sleeping female form next to me.

This time, the first petitioner for consideration in the aforementioned queue of assorted anxieties concerned recollections of a whole string of bad experiences I have had in my life, associated with black people.

“What?!” cry all my close friends who know me as one of the most balanced, fair-minded egalitarians in existence. “Difficulties with black people?!”

Yes, I’m afraid it’s true; I suffer from a deeply-repressed distrust of black Americans, but it’s so thoroughly buried in the depths of my awareness as to almost be all but overlooked and dismissed in its impact on me.

I suppose it began when I was a child, living in a small San Joaquin Valley town with my mum, who taught school there. This little agricultural berg we existed in at that time had a large black population of very poor people who even lived (as the stereotype inevitably has it) on the wrong side of the railroad tracks that ran smack down through the enter of the village (the town had actually begun back in the mid-1800s as a train watering whistle-stop stop along the main North/South rail line).

Since all the poor little black kids had to go to school, at which my mum taught, they all to varying degrees hated her, paragon of a well-educated white woman that she was. But (this was back in the late 50s), since at that time young black kids were not yet the totally reactive little gangbanger delinquents so many of them seem to be today, they couldn’t take out their ethnic frustrations on mum (who was, after all, a symbol of white authority…and backed-up by an administration and faculty that was also completely white). So, quess what? I became the subject of their hostilities and resentful anger.

The practical result of this was that throughout this phase of my youthful academic life I was regularly subjected to attempts by these little miscreants to make my life miserable, whenever they could get away with it. And because I was an extremely mild-mannered, innocent, ‘properly’ brought up Honky kid, I was regrettably vulnerable to this sort of subtle racial virulence.

There’s no doubt at all in my mind that this left some very deep and lasting scars that have since greatly colored (no pun intended) my attitudes towards blacks as a race.

But that was only the start of many similar circumstances in which I seem to have been on the receiving end of black angst, as, I suppose, an ‘easy target’ of convenience. This pattern continued well into my post-adolescent life when I found myself working in Stockton (CA) at Saint Joseph’s Hospital (a Catholic medical facility) in the late 1980s as a cardiovascular technologist. In the Saint Joseph’s cardiac cath lab were two women, both close friends and supposedly colleagues, both in their early 30s, one white (descended from an old pioneering Stockton family) and the other black. The latter person, whose name was ‘Salina’, was a bitter, spiteful and often absolutely hateful individual who, for reasons I could never figure out, treated me like…and I don’t mind saying it frankly here…shit. In fact, her favorite reference for me (both in person and behind my back) was 'that scummy little sack of shit.’ For a well-bred white person, it was a real shock to be treated that way for no apparent reason that made any sense by my reckoning.

For someone like me, mild-mannered, inoffensive, polite and courteous person that I was by both nature and training, this was unutterably disturbing and to say my tender sensitivities, as a person who constantly strove to treat all others fairly and considerately, were traumatically affected is considerably understating things. There was, furthermore, no recourse, since I HAD to work with both these characters closely and complaints to my manager (also a white guy, with very liberal orientations) were completely ineffectual, since my antagonist was a black woman, and at that time the political correctness convention underlying effusive white liberal guilt dictated that such individuals could literally do no wrong, since…after all…they were black! The analogue was akin to black people being allowed to say ‘nigger’ openly and routinely (whereas that word is totally off-limits to whites, now).

On a personal basis, I was totally unarmed and defenseless in the face of this irrational and grossly wrong attitudinal onslaught, since despite my Irish temper and heritage, I could not ever bring myself to trash-mouth this woman in as similar a gratuitous manner as she so richly deserved. Thus, it was a one-way exchange that I had to suffer through until the day I (happily) left that extremely depressing work-place, after enduring two years of work there.

So, what is it exactly that I’m trying to say here? I suppose the overall message that should come through is that it hasn’t been easy for me to overcome this acquired ‘race-relations programming’, despite my conscientious efforts to embrace ALL of humanity with the regard and respect all people, everywhere deserve as worthy co-inhabitants of this planet.

Today, well into my 7th decade of life, I am mature enough to fully understand and accept that life is never fair or perfect and that, regardless, we must constantly make an effort to regard and deal with EACH individual on the basis of his or her intrinsic merits and liabilities…most definitely NOT as members of a particular lumpen race or even group. To do so is exhausting and extremely effort-intensive, but it is categorically demanded of us as thoughtful, intelligent and educated individuals with properly developed social proprieties.

Today, I have friends who are (coincidentally) black and whopse 'volor' matters not at all to me, but it is interesting to note that most of them reflect white cultural values and precepts in their lifestyles, not the sort of virulently angry, deeply embittered and often violent 'Boyz'n the Hood' reactivity that is characteristic of youthful minority angst (such as frequently finds expression in the impoverished ghetto communities that are regularly in the news).

My initial response to any black person I routinely encounter or interact with is therefore one of reflexive friendliness, for until proven otherwise I characteristically regard everyone as a potentially worthwhile person.

Further, there are a great many things relative to so-called ‘black culture’ that I find both positive and worthy, but this is very likely the product of my trying always to keep an open mind at all times and in every situational circumstance.

Very recently, one of the local television media broadcasting stations began providing program viewing aimed primarily at a black audience (even including ‘ethnic’ commercial content). In their program offerings, they provide (among other things) some rather excellent movies focused on and involving black actors, plots and cultural references. I find that I greatly enjoy watching this channel on occasion and that the attitudinal philosophy underlying most of the station’s programs is frequently of a substantially higher caliber than many of the ‘white’ channels. This has happily given me a whole new appreciation for the fine acting abilities of some of the black actors who appear in these films, something that has often been obscured by the fact that the entertainment business (Hollywood, et al) has traditionally been almost an exclusively ‘white’ enterprise.

On another, unrelated parallel, my own interests as a history buff have given me enhanced awareness of the role Blacks have played in the expansion of the American frontier west…somewhat surprising since I had never much previously taken such things as ‘black cowboys’ seriously. To my gratification and surprise, I discovered that blacks were intricately involved in just about any phase of American history you could ever think of (including the ‘colorful’ cattle drives of the ‘Old West’ and the Gold Rush of ‘49, among many). My surprise is probably a disturbing inditement of my ignorance of such things, I am ashamed to admit, but at least I can be openly candid about it!

So, you are probably asking yourself, what has all this ruminative backstory to do with anything of real substance here?

To that, I must reply that, as a peripatetic, omnivorous reader, I fairly recently stumbled across brilliant American historian emeritus Arthur M. Schlesinger’s disarmingly slender (208 pages in the last, expanded & revised 1998 edition) book titled ‘The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society’ (Norton, ISBN 0-393-04580-3) and find it both timely, fascinating and cogently convincing in the thesis contained therein.

Schlesinger’s core thesis may be summed up as an analysis of the interplay of ethnocentrism (or the modern trend to emphasise ‘diversity’) versus ‘monocentrism’ (as Schlesinger describes it, the American tradition of emphasizing and celebrating America as a ‘unity’ of peoples) in our country. Think of this, if it helps, as putting ‘Pluribus’ ahead of ‘Unum’ (from ‘E pluribus Unum’, or ‘out of many, one’). In particular (and this is grossly simplifying Schlesinger’s erudite arguments), the author singles out ‘Afrocentrism’ as a chief exculpating factor in the vanguard of an increasingly fragmented and polarised American society.

Afrocentrism, which has held exponentially increasing favor since the Civil Rights Era of the 60s, threatens (in Schlesinger’s view) a sweeping attitudinal paradigm that attempts to celebrate black American culture as a viably direct offshoot of black African culture, when in fact black Americans have been in the United States for so long now that any such beliefs are complete constructs of pure, projected fantasy. Schlesinger argues that such completely fallacious wishful thinking threatens to dismember any vestige of what has been traditionally defined as ‘the American cultural melting pot’; thus, instead of positively contributing to any forging of a distinctly unique ‘American’ hegemony of intent & purposes, it goes so far beyond any imagined beneficial effects of righting the wrongs of former centuries of racial inequity that it threatens to destroy any sense of America as a successful experiment in establishing ‘liberty and justice for all’ peoples who seek the rights & privileges of American citizenship. Schlesinger believes, in this light, that ‘Afrocentrism’ is far more than merely disruptive; he feels it is positively harmful to an extreme.

Of course, it isn’t all quite as simple as that and Schlesinger does not single out the Afro-American ‘movement’ as a singular, severely disruptive dynamic that stands alone and by itself; merely, he opines, it is symptomatic of a greater overall cultural body of social thought, widely present and at work subversively throughout America today. Although the book first appeared in 1991 (it was subsequently revised and slightly expanded in 1998), even at that time Schlesinger expressed concern over the potentially formidable problems posed by unchecked & unquantified immigration (citing Hispanics, as constituting the bulk of the present ‘new wave’ of immigrants surging over America’s borders in previously unprecedented numbers).

One point that reemerges significantly throughout the book is Schlesinger’s pointed observation that America’s origins derived directly from the White cultures of Europe, whether today’s leftist progressives and ethno-focalists wish to accept that inescapable fact or not. He also makes of point of observing that contrary to being blindly oppressive and intellectually repressive, traditional European white culture was complexly variegated and promoted a fluid heritage of inclusion that contained ‘voices of rage & protest’, as well as ‘voices of celebration and devotion’ (to higher principles) and striving towards elevated ethical rectitudes. Certainly, white Europe has not held or has ‘any franchise on racism, imperialism, sexism, or all-around nastiness’ (supposed sins ‘that have been met or exceeded by cultures of Asia, the Middle East and Africa’ in past centuries). Thus, he argues that, according to reviewer Heather MacDonald, ‘Western Culture should not have presently popular excessive guilt trips laid upon it by champions of cultures based upon despotism, superstitions, tribalism and fanaticism’.

MacDonald further argues (a reiteration of Schlesinger’s opinion) that “…the West needs no lectures from the so-called ‘sun people’ (principally regarded as the indigenous peoples of Africa and the Middle East)…who sustained slavery long before and after the West abolished it, who still keep women in subjugation (including subjecting them to brutal genital mutilation practices), who show themselves either incapable of operating a democracy or ideologically hostile to the democratic idea, and who in their mad tyrannies and tribal massacres have so violently stamped with unparalleled brutality on basic human rights.”

This is not, nor should it be so construed, as an argument that our culture should not become somewhat modified as the various partisan ethnic groups within the country continue to impose situational change upon our society, but should be viewed properly in the context of looking back to the founding component ideals and constituent elements of America’s hereditary socio-political legacy.

As the Afrocentrists should be properly reminded (to continue Heather MacDonald’s astute observations on Schlesinger’s thesis), the current cult of self-Africanisation among a people who no longer have an authentic, direct relation to their African roots merely amounts to so much fanciful ‘play acting’, and actually works contrary to the greater espoused socio-economic aims & objectives of blacks. In fact, such ‘Black Pride’ attitudes function as a retardant dynamic whose most profound functional result is to disadvantage black children by imposing a sort of fallacious, idealised self-segregation of entitlement upon them that has little if any association with reality.

Schlesinger mentions some of the late 80s ethnocentrist efforts to establish Egypt as a preponderantly black culture, from whence, accordingly, a great number of scientific and social developments originated, only to be ‘stolen’ by the West (e.g. ‘black Egyptian’ learning, political and scientific achievements co-opted by the Greeks, for instance). Clearly, by any balanced reasoning, efforts such as that are grossly exaggerated beyond any reasonable basis in fact and as an eminent historian, Schlesinger deplores the popular tendency to ‘rewrite’ history so as to reflect a partisan outlook (‘historical revisionism’ as it is often termed).

Schlesinger also devotes no small amount of attention to public education, in particular the well-known movement to instill and enhance ‘self-esteem’ among so-called ‘disprivilieged’ children (the inference being that they are principally of black and/or hispanic ethnicity), citing many prominent authorities on our social culture that includes the likes of Aaron Bloom, and others. Very comprehensive literary research quickly reveals there is no evidence of any substance whatsoever to validate the popular theory that enhancing self-esteem in children has ANY demonstrable effect on elevating their academic success.

In fact, the reverse has been amply demonstrated, since unnatural self-worth more often is associated with failure than with improvement and academic success. To the contrary, as Yale law professor and author Amy Chua has amply argued, in a published work co-written with her husband (Jed Rubenfeld, also a law professor), if anything, varying degrees of insecurity and uncertainty, augmented by concurrent, conscientious striving to compensate almost invariably promotes substantially higher achievement and attainment of success.

One of Schlesinger’s arguments is that the ‘Afrocentrists’, who stress and promote the idea that black Americans are ‘Africans’ first and ‘Americans’ second, work disadvantageously and disingenuously against the very core concept of a diversified, free society that should ideally obtain in our nation. This sort of ‘radical diversity’, instead of being beneficial to society, is actually helping tear apart any sense of common ‘American identity’ that has traditionally held sway in the socio-political ideology of our national thought.

And of course, back in the late 80s (as Schlesinger noted), the so-called ‘political correctness’ mindset, that today is almost universally institutionalized, even at its best (and despite any positively motivated humane intentions) grossly works to subvert any possibility of maintaining unconstrained and open discussion in an ostensibly ‘free and open’ society, such as exists in the United States of America. Today’s radical leftist progressives repeatedly reflect this egregious tendency in their strident, often near-hysterical efforts to entirely shut down and deny engagement in ANY colloquy involving the proponents of what might be construed as having rightist thinking and/or opinion behind it.

On the whole, Arthur Schlesinger’s early 90s commentary on the ethnic attitudes that presently hold sway over so many intellectually dulled, blindly dogmatic individuals remains as astute now as it was back then. I was accordingly quite fascinated to thus run across it and I recommend it unreservedly to anyone caught up in the horns of the deleterious ‘apologist’ mode of PC thought (that ‘white culture’ is somehow evil incarnate) that is currently running amok in America, as the ‘new left’ continues to attempt to take America apart at the seams to suit its own definitions of propriety.

In closing, let me once again state for any and all who may fear I am echoing any sort of white supremacy sentiment here, that that is most definitely NOT my intent. But I do advocate freely independent thoughtfulness and intelligent reflection at all times…especially when considering such potentially inflammatory topics as the potential social conflagration that is race relations in America today.

“Come when they may, they shall not find us skulking and hiding, as if we feared to take our portion of the light of day, and left it all to them.” ~ Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens

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Select references:

1) The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society, Arthur Schlesinger, ISBN 0-393-04580-3, 1998, WW Norton & Company, 208 pp.

2) Review of ‘The Disuniting of America’, by Heather MacDonald

3) Books in Review, ‘The Disuniting of America’, by Peter L./ Welsh

4) Essay: ‘Why Arthur Schlesinger’s ‘Disuniting of America’ Lives On’, by Michael Lind, Professor, University of Texas JBJ School of Public Affairs, 2017