"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9
Lots of people are learning what it's like to be a nigger.
Not a black man or a Negro, but a nigger. The kind of nigger who has no rights, the kind whose humiliation and suffering is entertainment for those in power.
After the attacks on the World Trade Center, Arab Americans got a taste of being a nigger, and now Latinos are getting their turn.
In all honesty, every minority group has faced discrimination during this country's sordid history. Black people have no monopoly on suffering, and most educated black folks understand that Native Americans, Latinos, Asians and other immigrants have all been niggers at one point in time.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio understands how easy it is to justify the abuse of niggers.
"Sheriff Joe" made a name for himself in Arizona by ignoring the constitutional rights given to prisoners and creating his own little fiefdom of abuse and misconduct. Lovers of law and order across this great land smiled benevolently when Arpaio forced his inmates to wear pink undergarments and live in tent cities during Arizona's fierce summers. They chuckled when he bragged that he could feed prisoners on 30 cents a day.
In their hearts they agreed that this was a man who understood what this country needed to return to its former glory; to reclaim a past where niggers knew their place and stayed there. Despite more than $13 million in payouts for lawsuits, Sheriff Joe is still Maricopa County's favorite lawman.
Hell, to ensure the public's love Arpaio took things one step further and invited everyone to join in on the fun by deputizing thousands of volunteers and sending them out with weapons to keep order.
Now Arizona's Latinos are learning how a posse handles niggers.
Oh, it's true that the days of roasting a "coon" over an open flame while family and friends look on with glee are long gone. No longer do shouts of "String that nigger up" ring out from the armed, jeering crowd, instead it's "Send those wetbacks home" that spews from onlookers' lips.
Knotted ropes have been replaced by silver handcuffs, and the charge is no longer whistling at a white women, but instead it's failing to use a blinker when making a turn. But, the posse still indiscriminately round up anyone who fits a simple description; brown skin and a failure to fit in.
These round-ups aren't just favored by Sheriff Joe, no, they are encouraged and funded by those in the highest positions in the federal government. Joe's immigration sweeps are paid for by federal officials who have turned over most of their policing duties to local authorities. The feds claim it's a perfect system that it allows them to concentrate on more important things while protecting "state's rights."
Sound familiar?
Truthfully, the harassment of law abiding citizens with the goal of maintaining the peace should come as no surprise to we original niggers. We know the humiliation of being hauled from our vehicles for "having an attitude." We have felt the anger that boils up after being told that our very presence in the upscale subdivision we scrimped and saved to move into is considered "suspicious."
We went from beasts of burden to just plain beasts, and roving packs of dark-skinned brutes have long been the bogeyman used to frighten white folks of every nationality. This fear drove the South to embrace the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan, and made it easy for the North to let ethnic police forces use Gestapo tactics in every ghetto. It drives Sheriff Joe on his sweeps through the immigrant neighborhoods of Maricopa County.
Now, everybody feels our pain.
Pay Attention
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9 comments:
everysince 911, aint that the truth
Well, this comes from a theological standpoint, WNG, so not everyone will relate to it, but we humans have a piss-poor track record of learning from history going back to the beginning. Abel was trying to learn from his parents' past and do right. His brother Cain wasn't. All well and good to have a 50-50 track record (better than we have today, I reckon), but then Cain went and killed the guy who was trying to learn from history. There's human nature for ya...don't learn from history and kill those who try to. ;-)
“In all honesty, every minority group has faced discrimination during this country's sordid history. Black people have no monopoly on suffering, and most educated black folks understand that Native Americans, Latinos, Asians and other immigrants have all been niggers at one point in time.”
I strongly Agree with the above comments Big Man!
And ironically, it’s your words_ “at one point in time” that forces me to Respectfully disagree with your other comment _
“Now, everybody feels our pain.”
For starters: Except for the Native Americans (who were d*mn near annihilated by the Anglos, who STOLE their land) and Our African ancestors who were brought here in CHAINS_all other racial and ethnic groups came here by Choice!
You have “Latinos” illegally crossing U.S. borders RIGHT NOW, despite the fact that they know they’re NOT welcomed here by most Americans. But they CHOOSE to come anyway!
IMO, the fact that most of the "illegals" who are rounded-up, suffers only incarceration and then deportation, makes their "pain" a "cakewalk" compared to ours!
Next: European-Anglo groups who came to America were afforded the “socio-privilege” by virtue of hard-work and RACE _ (NOT necessarily by a rise in economic status)_ to eventually shake off their “nigger” status.
I've seen REAL Africans, who are now American citizens, (some of them even in handcuffs) think themselves "superior" to Blacks, by virtue of their birthplace and culture.
While Black-Americans must deal with the fact _ that no matter how HARD we work to achieve ANYTHING in this country; no matter how many barriers we “overcome”; OR how Rich you may be; H*LL you could even OWN a bank!..in America you're still viewed as just a "nigger."
In short, I'm simply saying that Our “experience” in America is so Uniquely different that I don’t believe other groups could ever possibly feel “Our pain”_!
Truth
I think I wrote about the concept the nobody other than the Native Americans can truly appreciate the historical experience of black people in my post "Everybody's a Victim."
In this post I was trying to note that slowly but surely all these other minority groups are being reminded today that they are just one eff up away from getting the nigger label. The Arab Americans still haven't recovered from 9/11 and Latinos are rapidly gaining nigger status. Both groups have begun to get racially profiled and treated as constant threats in recent years.
My argument is that in that way they are learning what it's like to be a nigger, not that they have the same historical baggage that black people have. And if that cat in North Korea ever gets really pissed and bombs us, Asian Americans will get their nigger wake up call as well.
so basically what deacon blue is saying is that i'm marked for death?
:)
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Well, WNG, that depends. If you have a sister named Caina, I'd be especially careful. ;-)
"In this post I was trying to note that slowly but surely all these other minority groups are being reminded today that they are just one eff up away from getting the nigger label."
Oh okay Big Man_I hear ya!
I don't think it's healthy to compare oppression.
However, I think people do that all the time, and only get upset when someone points out that their comparisons don't make sense.
It's silly for me to argue with a woman that her oppression as a woman isn't as bad as mine as a black man. How would I judge that?
But, it's also silly for people to compare their movements for justice to the Civil Rights Movement or the suffering of Native Americans.
To often people minize the real price paid by black people by comparing their plight to the plight of black people. It may not seem like a big deal, but when Ralph Nader thinks nasty emails are as bad as what the people fighting Jim Crow had to endure, well there's a disconnect.
That disconnect is what feeds the culture where black people are told to "get over it" when they point out legitimate concerns. The same can be said for any true suffering that is compared to something in consequential.
So, I can see where Truth is coming from (after all I did write about it) but I do understand your point G about not participating in the Oppression Olympics.
I just think we can do both.
Big Man, good read. MLK said (I paraphrase) bad things happen when good people remain silent.
The white man has never done any good deed on their own. They have always had to be fought tooth and nail to do the morally upright. And this situation in Arizona will be no different.
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