video: Is This What Black People Feel Like? Racism in America Today (approved + allowed)

“This is a chance for all of us in Congress to sort of begin at a new baseline and stop spreading the myth of American exceptionalism and accept the fact that this is exactly who we are, and this is exactly who we’ve been throughout our country’s history. Whenever there’s social progress, there’s White backlash, particularly from the people who believe that this needs to remain a White-dominant nation.” — Congressman Jamaal Bowman gets to state this openly racist rhetoric … and gets no pushback.
I’m going to pushback, but with a twist, of  … understanding?

My first response was one of anger. Immediately I thought I’d make a sarcastic, angry video describing the hypocrisy of condoning and encouraging BLM rioting and looting, and I mean that literally, for example, did you know there was a book promoted on NPR and other leftists strongholds called “In Defense of Looting?”
I’m not making this up. It found a publisher and has sold non-ironically purchased copies, likely convincing some “yeah yeah, looting and pillaging, it might harm a couple people, but society is better as a whole because of it.”

For the last seven months, the mostly leftist media has been gas lighting and giving cover to physical attacks, while using a singular riot from the right on capitol hill as an excuse and cudgel to go after the freedoms of all Americans and labeling all US citizens who voted for Trump as white supremacists.

Oh, and I will show you a couple of clips here, but rest assured I will get to the crux of why you might have clicked on the video where we have these clips and added graphics that hopefully will bring this essay to life.

There is tremendous asymmetry in what I can say, versus a woke, person of color. If I were to demonize people based on race, a reflexive violent reaction from the left would be to shout and cancel me via the ubiquitous accusations of ignorant, white supremacist, as well the need for me to reeducated in newly minted campos supplied by the taxpayer.
But then I thought I would take a breather, and relax and let my natural instinct to fight back simmer down.

A few minutes later, a wave of sadness flooded my body.
Rather than fight against it, I just tried to understand why I was having such a reaction.
My first thought was that the color of my skin, my race was being used a cudgel against me. That any time someone doesn’t like an idea I espouse, an immutable characteristic leaves me open to the invariable attack and strawman, by shifting focus to the color of my skin, away from the logic of my point.
And then it occurred to me, most of my black friends, if not all of them, have at one point or another told me they experienced racism. That they felt the color of their skin precipitated horrible actions and statements from white folk.
In some stories the racism was point-blankety stated, to which I have no counter, while other stories lent themselves to other possible explanations as well.

To give an example, I myself had two separate incidents where police pinned me to ground, handcuffed me, accused me of heinous crimes.
On one of those occasions I was held for hours, my car searched, and then my apartment as well, which I agreed to because even if I was freed at that moment of the request, I would be able to get at most 2 hours of sleep before having to rise for work.
It was a case of mistaken identity, and I tell you, if I was black, and had been pre-framed by all the horrendous stories about the po-po and their underlying hatred of people of color, I would have had to assume their mistreatment of me was purely racist.
But as I am white, I just assumed that they were overaggressive and really bad at their jobs.

My black friends insist that I’ll never know what it’s like to be black in America.
But today, dare I say it, maybe I do know, even if the feeling is merely one that runs in parallel.

With the tidal-wave of anti-white rhetoric coming from the left-hand side of the aisle, with Congressmen able to preach the evils of whiteness, able to denigrate people based on who they voted for as white supremacists, with the continual onslaught based solely on skin color, I believe that I am beginning to develop an idea of what it feels like to be attacked based on race.
And it sucks. It makes me feel more distant. It makes me feel less trusting of anyone who I associate as being a potential accuser.
Is that why based on the actions of a few malevolent people, so many of my black friends harbor underlying resentments towards white people? Even though I would estimate 99.8% of us today don’t care one iota what color skin you have.

You see, you accuse someone once or twice of malevolency towards you, they’ll most likely desire to understand your position. The natural assumption when someone is mad, that it is for a reason. I want to address your concern and see if we can harmonize, possibly resolve the central issue.
But when you make the solution impossible, aka, to solve “systemic racism” which did exist in the past, but the goalposts of defining it shift continuously, and in the United States, you won’t unearth it, unless you’re referring to affirmative action or Joe Biden’s new promise to give away Covid business relief on a racial basis.
Or perhaps you define the problem as something that occurred before I was even born, when I had no ancestors in the country, then continue to attack using your magical and mythical white supremacist cudgel when I disagree, the instinct is to move as far away from you as possible.
But if you keep coming after your opponent, when you try to exert force over them, when you destroy their businesses, when you try to literally tread on them by taking away their rights, their money, their future, at some point you have to expect the snake coiled in a ball, rattling its tail in warning, to strike.

Is America a perfect place? No, of course not. But America must be compared to the rest of of the world, not utopia.
What’s more, Americans have a history of bettering the nation over time, of slowly living up to the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This is why 99.99% of Americans alive today would have fought on the side of the Union during the Civil War, in an effort to free the slaves and abolish this horrific practice which still exists today in some areas of the world.
It’s why when Jackie Robinson made it to the big leagues, and some true racists denigrated and threatened him, they stood in the way of his pursuit of happiness, of what was his God given right, based solely on his color of skin.
And I would have told every single one of those haters how wrong they were, and cheered Jackie on.
When Martin Luther King Jr. demanded that he and his four little children be treated by the content of his character and not the color of his skin, I wish I had been alive at the time and marched by the side the great man, and been able to listen to his soaring oration in person. What he demanded was equal opportunity, and acknowledgement that God created him as his equal.

And today, as the vitriol and hate from the left rises and comes unfiltered with greater volume and velocity I feel it. I feel the hatred, like blacks must have felt in the South during Jim Crowe where such pronouncements were deemed acceptable by “polite” civilization.
But today these are Congressmen who are spreading this hateful racism, denigrating others like me on the basis of skin color.
I imagine this to be similar to how Vivian Malone Jones felt as Governor George Wallace stood in front of her, following through on his promise to personally block the integration of the University of Alabama.
Hating her, blaming her, merely because she was black.

I feel that because the politicians are ratcheting up their hateful rhetoric today.

What must not unite along tribal lines, but be bonded by a shared set of values.
To all the Jackie Robinson’s of the world, to all the MLK’s, to all my friends who have experienced real racism, who just want to be treated as an equal, to be judged on your talents and character, I feel you. I really do.
I am not even all that sensitive. I deal with rejection, theft of one kind or another, and scorn regularly, but the words of the left hurtling at us with ever increasing velocity and vitriol, unchecked by their ideological counterparts, hurt the soul.
As I gain a greater understanding of how you might have felt, I hope you can be empathic with how I feel today.

So I ask you, let’s unite under the shared values of America set forth by Thomas Jefferson.
Stand up against this new racism, this weaponized hatred being used to divide our nation.
Please understand that others are human beings just like you, and to stay silent in the face of scorn and evil, will result in the fabric of our nation fraying more and more quickly.
We are on this great river of life on a boat called America that, imperfect as it might be, that protects the rest of the world from the predation of evil.

And we are being subverted by hateful people, who care only for their influence and political power, and their own wealth.
I see America going down that river with ever increasing speed as the rapids grow stronger.

And I am telling you there is a waterfall ahead. A big one that will destroy our boat and splinter us into a million pieces.
Whether the waterfall is called Civil War, dissolution of the union, or destruction of our Constitution and Bill of Rights I don’t know, but I do know that I seek peace first. I desire unity. I ask us to see how far we have come. and work towards making our nation a place where opportunity exists for everyone.

And I also say that I am willing, for the sake of my children, that I am willing to defend to defend their freedoms that have served our nation and the world, with my life if you continue to tread on them.
I will not silent. I will tell you I recognize your pain, that we all have some, and I will implore all for peace and unity, until you force me to pick up my gun.
Violence is a last resort. Please, let’s set or course and row together towards the shores of opportunity, rather than go over the falls to the gleeful chortles of China, Iran, and those who just want to watch the world burn.
But I will defend freedom. I will defend the first Amendment, and that includes Congressman Jamaal Bowman’s right to state his hateful rhetoric, but I will not yield to attempts to silence my right to speak.

Please take a step back. I’d much rather celebrate a 4th of July barbecue with you, then take up arms against a fellow American.

Peace.