Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Perspectives: Racism & Ignorance Are They Here To Stay?

Image is the property of http://www.thejnsreport.com (c) 2016. All rights reserved.

Written by Akan Bosemann

In short my belief currently is yes racism & ignorance are here to stay.  For as many people as one reaches or attempts to educate about how upbringing, long held cultural, and historical beliefs, coupled with institutional racist systems and policies shape how we as human beings interpret our existence amongst each other, there appears to be an endless ocean of those caught holding onto the centuries old mentality that they are figments of the imaginations of those of us who live day in and day out under the burdens and plights of racism.

Humanity is flawed and can never be perfect.  We will choose to do the wrong things at times even with the absolute knowledge that what we choose to do or not do is either right or wrong and ultimately has consequences that affects us all.

I find it almost comical to approach a conversation as complex while at the same time as simple as explaining to someone who may not have necessarily experienced racism or prejudice or injustice to the same degree as some others might have, what it’s like to get those who haven’t experienced the same things to understand the perspectives of those on the receiving end of injustice & racism.

There is often an apathetic victim blaming mentality I seem to constantly come up against. This gnaws at me to no end partly because I have I guess a certain unrealistic belief that if you approach people with logic and basic common sense reasoning they would see exactly what it is that is being said and come to the same conclusion.

How wrong I’ve been but I guess such is the battle of winning hearts and minds.  Experience is the best teacher.  As weird as it may sound or unlikely to occur, I really wish that the same people who have apathy or don’t want to have uncomfortable conversations, or who want to ignore what’s been happening (due to privilege) could be somehow transported back in time to relive the same atrocities and injustices they so easily dismiss or make light of.  It’s because they haven’t lived the same experiences that they are either unwilling or unable to appreciate how evil and corrosive racism, inequality, and injustice are to a human being and the human spirit.

I have flash back moments to the show Quantum Leap with Scott Bakula & Dean Stockwell wishing that you could plug and play police officers who have a history of brutality or unarmed shootings being transported back in time much like Quantum Leap into the bodies of not necessarily historical icons or figures but people who lived during those time periods receiving the harsh treatments of slavery, Jim Crow, Civil Rights, up to present day the difference would be that now they are the ones receiving the abuse, the violence, the injustice when the courts turn a blind eye to the lives being lost.

The more we think we as a society have progressed and become more civilized the less true I find it to be.  How can we as a nation tell other nations how to govern or treat their citizens without examining the history of how America has treated it’s own citizens from its beginnings right down to modern day? I suggest the viewing of the documentary 13th by Ava Duvernay as a good place to start examining what we have and continue to see as the heritage of American society.  What it means to be a person of color in America and what it means to be white in America.