“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”
–Martin Luther King, Jr.
Today is the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Reverend King is remembered most for his fight against government mandated racism, usually in the form of segregation. He famously spoke of a day when his children were judged by the content of their characters, as opposed to the color of their skin. Due to his efforts, and the efforts of many, many more Americans, legal segregation, and racial barriers to voting, were eradicated. Now, 58 years following his death, how are we doing?
The Observations suggests we [the United States] are not doing well at all. Our society is obsessed with race. Affirmative action and racial quotas are present in government and private sector hiring decisions. Medical treatments are delivered on the basis of race. College and private preparatory school admissions are based on race [and sex]. Colleges have racially segregated dorms, social centers, and other facilities. Even graduations are racially segregated.
But we do not call racism by its name anymore. Instead we use code words such as “diversity”, “inclusion”, and “equity”. But no matter what you call it, it remains racism. And it is used as a political weapon by the Left to divide and conquer the American people. This began in earnest under then President Barack Hussein Obama, waned under the President Trump, and accelerated out of control under China Joe. Despite President Trump’s best efforts, it still is not dead, as the Left fights tooth and nail to discriminate on the basis of race.
If you criticize a “person of color”, you are a “racist” and a “white supremacist”, unless the criticized person of color is a conservative or a Republican. And before moving on, how can anyone argue with a straight face that “person of color” is not the same thing as “colored person”. Calling a Negro a colored person went out of fashion in Richard Nixon’s first presidential term.
There is a growing movement for reparations to be paid to “people of color”. It used to be restricted to black people, but then the Indians wanted in on the scam. Governments, businesses, and churches are falling all over themselves to spend money—other people’s money—on reparations. What is really going on is racial politics. People who never owned slaves are going to be required to pay money to people who were never enslaved. That is not reparations. That is the payment of protection money.
We need to STOP talking about race. We need to STOP talking about “diversity”, “equity”, and “inclusion”. We need to strip every NFL stadium of its social justice slogans. We need to start treating others as we would wish to be treated. We need to see each other as human beings, not members of racial tribes. We need to act like AMERICANS!
The key to how to get along with people is to be nice. Be polite. Treat them as you wish to be treated. This is not rocket science. But we are so far from this truth that it is hard to imagine how to return to it.
Today let us contemplate the state of our society in the context of human dignity. God grants each one of us dignity that he intends us to honor in all. Our rights flow from God, and are inherent and universal. Irrespective of man’s failure to guarantee and protect those rights through the actions of government or individuals, those rights exist and cannot be taken away by mere mortals. Even in the darkest corners of the most tyrannical regimes on this Earth, every man is clothed with the rights and dignity granted him by our Lord. It should be the goal of everyone to treat others with respect for that dignity and those rights.
Which is why so often I write in these pages of despicable, nonsensical, and farcical actions of discrimination, particularly that based upon immutable characteristics such as race. Supreme Court Justice John Harlan famously wrote in his dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, that our Constitution was colorblind. And so it is. So too is God. The Bible is quite clear that He made man in His Own Image. Race is not mentioned.
President Reagan famously appealed to man’s better instincts in advocating for freedom and liberty for all, throughout the world, in fighting against the scourge of communism. But today we have put his words aside. Abroad we regularly do business with countries such as China, which employ slave labor. We draw a moral equivalence between Western culture and all other cultures, even those other cultures degrade man. At home, we have turned 180 degrees from the notion that a man should be judged by the quality of his character and not the color of his skin.
It is an affront to man’s dignity to divide the people on the basis of race. It is an affront to the dignity of man to dismiss the basic notions of right and wrong, basic truths which have existed since the beginning of time. And it is an affront to the dignity of man to turn a blind eye to the evils in this world, enabling them to continue. By engaging in these indignities, we extinguish the beacon of freedom that was once the United States of America. We jeopardize our place on Earth, bequeathed to us by God, since even before our founding.
Our country, and the world, face many problems. But it is folly to think that we can successfully address them if we cannot get the basics right.
If you reject racism, reject the Left. And embrace your neighbor. May God Bless America.
GFK
Observations From The Fifth Estate 