Recently, I was watching on French TV a program or show if you prefer, I am very fond of it. The show is conducted by a very bright host who discusses the topics of each book with their writers, usually 4 of them.
The books the host selects have some relation to a somewhat common subject. The uninterrupted talks are about the different perspectives each author deploys to examine the topic they have developed in their work. Questions are pointed and the show’s animator, always respectful, is never the less unafraid to address issues head-on.
I was thinking those are the kinds of informative shows Americans should have the luxury to see but on TV, too often commercials interrupt trains of thought, many a time, conveniently. In addition, such shows are not readily available since they are not big moneymakers and when they appear on Radio or Broadcasting, they, unfortunately, are often tainted by so-called intellectuals with a Leftist bias.
As I was listening, my mind wandered back to my long-gone acting classes when the Hollywood Guru who ran them used to ask students, many of them already famous, when discussing a film: "What is the story about?" He contended that one has to be able to condense the story arc within a sentence or two. Short of being able to do so, it would not be possible to intelligently elaborate on it.
So this post is about an American phenomenon and export: Wokeism.
Anyhow, on that particular show, I was watching, the subject was: Racism and Slavery.
Two white guys, a historian of mixed-race descent from Senegal and a Nigerian-born American woman were the guests. Each one of them seemed bright. I assiduously followed the one-hour conversations between participants. The one thing that was all the time on the back of my mind was that consciously or not, each one of them was trying to adapt their story-arc explanations to the American-import political flavor of the day, Critical Race Theory or CRT.
The historian whose book was chronicling a bi-racial love story was more nuanced while the Nigerian lady was more focused on her ancestor's suffering as slaves while denouncing the fact that some in her own family had a lot to do with the business of 'selling slaves'. In that regard, I could not feel nor read in her any sense of remorse while the others were unwittingly or not coming from a sense of an acute guilt point of view.
What the Senegalese man was saying was kind of: “You can be a white supremacist and love a black woman but you are in a position of dominance.” I found that to be ludicrous if you have observed women around the world. Male dominance is often just a joke.
The whole thing threw me back to my 9 months in the Caribbean on the island of St Martin. I was sent there to be a troubleshooter for a construction project which for 40 years had been suffering setback after setback by what St Martiners called: "The Lepper's Curse". Quite a story that of this never-finished creepy hotel where I lived for all of my stay on the island.
There, a black young woman from Santo Domingo was working as a maid. Her skin tone was so black and so smooth, it had beautiful blueish effects. She was not particularly statuesque as she had been a mother earlier, but something about her was extremely attractive. I was mesmerized by that person but since I never had a chance to lay a finger on her I could not explore further my real feelings. One day as I walked into a bungalow of that complex, there she was, alone. I approached her. She looked at me intensely with tears in her eyes as she whispered in Spanish as if she were sorry: "Max would kill me if he saw me here with you" then rushed out of the bungalow. I knew of Max and his profound hatred of anything white, although this bodybuilder type of guy who could have killed me with a single blow, was visibly more than half white himself but carried a profound resentment he was probably incapable of explaining to himself.
So, yes, anyone can fall in love with anyone else regardless of skin color, nationality, or language. Physical attraction knows no race.
The two white guys on the show I was watching, elucubrating on their guilt-laden diatribes were more interested in showing and proving to viewers their newfound ‘Wokeness’. A nowadays ‘de rigueur’ attitude in the intelligentsia sphere. A phenomenon promulgated, promoted, amplified, and exploited for gain by social platforms of people who are angry about their own shortcomings without realizing it.
To summarize, I believe that today, feeling guilty about slavery or forcing others to feel that way is not a constructive solution for our country. Of course, slavery happened but it is those first poor enslaved people and their children who got the worst end of the stick so to speak. They are the ones who suffered the suffering, the wounds, the pain, and the humiliations. Not their today’s descendants. Are there remnants of discrimination? Yes. I witnessed many in my years in America. However, as mentioned earlier, societies easily breed not-so-bright people and exalt stupid greedy pundits. And now with technology and the exceptional reach of social media, those individuals can exploit the pains of the past, by bringing them into a new forefront fabricated context, disgraceful at times but which is far from the repulsive, inhumane slavery context of the 1700s. These disaffected individuals generate for their own benefit more lucrative divisions, rather than offer any badly needed positive solutions.
All in all, watching that show made me realize that one man had it right on when he declared: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
That time has arrived and it does not belong to CRT. It belongs to rewarding efforts to better one’s content of character which resides and can be rooted in real, unadulterated history teaching and good unbiased education.
As my wife said once to a father who was more interested in his son’s future as a football player than anything else and was asking of her to change the F she gave the kid for and A, she answered: “Sure! All he has to do to get an A from me is for him to work harder to deserve it”.
All in class! White, Black, Brown, red, blue, or any other color you may belong to. That is where young Americans belong.
Not a melting pot but a delicious soup of knowledge and know-how, made of different healthful and healthy ingredients, with which, our new, well-educated youngsters can become ‘knowledge foodies’ who appreciate, discern and savor each of these ingredients and are aware of each of their benefits.
A very special soup that makes up America a unique and exceptional place to enjoy.