Winged Earth Magazine

I gain great insight into the depths of Assata’s struggle from this reading, and I am gaining an understanding of the details of each aspect of the life of an oppressed minority. But how can an intelligent conversation really exist with knowing just as well an understanding just as well the struggle of a racist, the struggle that leads such a person to become a racist? Are these people really just ape-minded? I don’t think that can really be the case. These are human beings with hope and desires and feelings of how the world should be, who have been led to an ultimate fear or hatred of some unknown force in society which they do not fully comprehend and thus blame on races of human that are foreign or alien to themselves. It would be easy to say that a Black Panther who hates white people is just an ignorant “redneck” type with too much insecurity or lust for power, but we know better than that, especially through our readings of Assata. Therefore, I believe we should attempt the same sort of understanding to the New Jersey State Troopers.

My studies of Nazi ideology, primarily from Alfred Rosenberg’s Race and Race History, are leading me to conclude that these people (white supremacists) feel so strongly within themselves a sense of heroism and nobility and courage and virtue that they cannot comprehend how so much ugly human behavior can possibly exist in the world, that people would resort to crime, materialism, and living for the pursuit of nothing but comfort and self-indulgence. They feel the cry for real virtue so strongly that they believe it must be a fundamental part of their being, in their genes and their souls. Therefore, they conclude that any ugliness and departure from their fundamental values of nobility must result from people who are fundamentally different from themselves, and race is the easiest form of fundamental difference observable to the human eye. Once one starts to see a set of people as being different, it is easy to, every time, associate a completely different set of rules to them and then observe them reinforcing those rules, because the observer will filter out any departures from the rules. You think someone is fundamentally greedy, you will only notice their greed and put their generosity in terms of a self-serving purpose. And once someone is part of a foreign, evil group, that threatens the good group, the logical conclusion to that train of thought is that the evil people must be eradicated from the Earth. Racists think of themselves as fighting for some noble cause, as opposed to thinking of themselves as full of hate.

I think there really is something wrong with our society - the dark, unknown force that racists are afraid of. Courage is viewed of as idiocy in this city. I hear people making fun of the girl who stood up to muggers in the Lower East Side recently and got shot as a result. In the majority, there seems to be no virtue associated with creating something great and positive, or accomplishing a higher purpose. Rather, making enough money to be comfortable and to buy gaudy accessories that will supposedly impress other people and make us feel more comfortable about ourselves, is the highest virtue in this city. Real creative art that inspires and uplifts people is viewed of as “sentimental” or “naïve” and pieces that ridicule and tear down culture is viewed as cutting edge. Our possessions and pleasures become the primary topic of conversation, while our goals and ideals become incidental, or non-existent. I could go on and on, but my point is that the dark force that people are afraid of, that the Germans of the early 20th century and probably most other racists and war-mongers and militant types are afraid of, does exist. I think attempting to understand that dark force and fight against it may help to give people an answer to their fears other than race (or religion or sexual orientation or whatever). But at the same time, I don’t think essays and commentary alone have the ability to change people’s mind. It has to be presented in the form of a glorious cultural movement that reinforces what is great about a society of multi-culturalism. In the end, I believe people want to be heroes, and what constitutes a hero is defined by the art that celebrates it.