Put Yourself to Bedlam

Racists = Cops in Burlington

Last night I had the unfortunate opportunity to witness racism in one of it's ugliest forms: police profiling. As I was sitting outside a cafe enjoying a serene summer moment in my beloved city an argument broke out in a nearby parking lot.

Three young black kids and a white couple were on the verge of a physical fight with the white male lunging at one of the black kids screaming the "N bomb" over and over while his white girlfriend threw herself between them. This went on for a few minutes before a gathering crowd, ending in the bigoted couple slinking away still screaming their disgusting slurs.

The black kids tried to leave in the other direction but before they could get out of there six cop cars roared up and surrounded the black group. They held the boys there for some time particularly paying attention to the boy who was attacked.

I was relieved to see them taking a statement, but also horrified to notice that none of the six cars headed in the direction of the white aggressors. Finally, they let the black kids go on their way but one white cop tailed them on foot at a discreet distance.

I was completely disgusted by the entire scene and while it was happening I imagined how I could get involved without getting hurt. I waited through the "statement taking process" to see if they might choose to arrest the kid or some such nonsense, at which time I was prepared to go to the police station to offer a statement of my own.

What really bothers me is the drama that surrounded the black kids while it was apparent that rather than treat this like a hate crime (which it was) they chose to assume the trouble makers were the blacks.

Burlington is ridiculously heavy on it's white population (wealthy and poor) and the poor welfare clans have an inexplicably racist superiority complex. They're just as poor as any inner city blacks I've ever seen and just as f'ed up with their drug problems, domestic violence, absentee fathers etc. It's the standard state of being poor I guess. Too bad they have to add racism to their many other problems.

On the other hand, Burlington has an amazing African immigrant population juxtaposed against the otherwise practically monochromatic town in their vibrant traditional dress often with exquisite children in tow. I've never seen a single negative incident involving any of them and consider their presence a great gift to the city and my personal aesthetic.

It's a shame that the police here are so narrow minded. It's even more of a shame that the kids last night had to endure their ignorance.

I saw them a few minutes later as I was riding home on my bicycle and stopped to tell them I was sorry for what happened and that I saw the whole thing and felt ashamed of my city and my race on their behalf. They said they appreciated it and we all rode off into the night poorer in spirit for the experience.

With hope,
XXKHT

“The misogyny that shapes every aspect of our civilization is the institutionalized form of male fear and hatred of what they have denied and therefore cannot know, cannot share: that wild country, the being of women.” --Ursula LaGuin

 

                                                                                     

Vigilantes kill 40 women in Iraq's south 

BAGHDAD - Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings," the police chief said Sunday.

"The women of Basra are being horrifically murdered and then dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior..."

"In September, the headless bodies of a woman and her 6-year-old son were among those found..."

Last night, I followed this excerpt with the outraged viscera reading this evoked from my soul.

Leaving it here all night plagued me; not because I was afraid of retribution for what I said about Muhammad, or the various threats I made to these hideous monsters, but because I realized I'd stooped to their level.

At that moment, I was willing to do to them  (or much worse) what they are doing to the innocent women in their society, whose only crime is being born into the wrong religious sector with a shred of individuality and will of their own.

I won't pretend I don't feel hatred for the retarded freaks who destroyed the innocents. Removing my insults to their idols wasn't a concession to them, but rather an acquiescence to myself; an affirmation of my peaceful creed.

Crazy world we live in.

KHT

"Just as a man's denominational orientation is the result of   upbringing, and only the religious need as such slumbers in his   soul, the political opinion of the masses represents nothing   but the final result of an incredibly tenacious and thorough   manipulation of their mind and soul."
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.” --Abraham J. Heschel

With the exception of Switzerland, and perhaps some albino country as yet unbeknownst to me, Vermont is likely the whitest place on earth.

Occasionally this actually surprises me anew, because most of the time I simply don't notice such things. My ex-husband once told me that this was because, as a white person, I'd never been made to notice.

That statement perpetually comes back to me when the subject of racism comes up. Even though he is half black, and our children arrived in various exquisite shades of mocha, somehow I managed to amble forth through life benignly ignorant of the difference between us.

When I was a little girl - maybe 10 years old - I remember having an argument with my grandparents over whether I would marry a black man. I don't remember at the time having any serious inclination to do so, but somehow, the subject came up and I argued the case.

"You mustn't!" they cried.
"Why not?" I demanded.
Then they actually said (and I've never forgotten), "Think of your children! Maybe yours will be white enough, but generations from now a black one could show up, and it would be ruinous!"

Oh geez. They were nice people too; just ignorant. It was what they were taught to believe by their own parents and communities and those that came before them. But I chose not to believe it. I didn't make a choice, I just inherently knew - or didn't exactly know - I just plain didn't get it; I never have.

And what of these days? With all the rabbit hole distractions of the post 9/11 world of global warming, GMOs, rBGHs, HFCS, the New World Order and the rest of the many piracies of mother earth I continue managing to forget about racism. I'm not a racist, so on my personal planet the subject is closed, right? I keep hoping it will go away on it's own. What can I do?

That's a good question. What can I do from the whitest state in the nation? Well, I can publish the following brilliant video in this here blog, and hope some people will watch it and think about it.

The part with the baby dolls pierced me right to the core; another lesson I'll carry with me always, but try to bury  deep because I'm helpless to do anything tangible and it hurts to consider as I quixotically fight the more pressing threats to me mine and they.

Sent helplessly into the ether... XXKHT

"Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away, and that in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty."  --Martin Luther King, Jr.