American racism

A thought.  Is America a Racist Nation?  Yep.  That's because America inherited the racist justifications used to excuse the African slave trade and persecution of American Indians by the European imperialist powers.  Protestant England, Catholic Spain and Portugal, and yes, the Islamic world.  All had their own Racist Justifications for what they knew was wrong, but a justification for what they wanted.

The thing is, America is a young nation formed in the midst of this.  Those cultures and nations and kingdoms were already ancient by the time the Founding Fathers came together to make some sense of this mess.  The slavery and racism that America had on day one of its official existence was, of course, the gift given from England.  Not that England was unique.  But that's where it came from, and it was in their blood like persecuting opposition to gay marriage is in our blood today.

But when it was time, those cultures could simply dilute those racist excuses into the larger pool of their more ancient cultures, customs, traditions, values, and histories.  America as a nation couldn't.  Racism used in America to excuse African slavery and Indian persecution was there from day one.  There is nothing greater to swallow it up.

Of course that's not to say racism only exists in America.  Or that those other European nations don't still have traces of it in their blood.  But if England adopted flagrant racism to excuse the slave trade or stealing land from the native inhabitants, all of which it benefited from for almost 200 years, that was only a small part of its history that stretches back centuries upon centuries.  Same with Spain.  Or any of the Islamic states that had their own brand of 'they're just so close to animals' reasoning to justify the robust Arabic slave trade.

America?  Nope.  Our existence has had that from day one.  If we got rid of all traces of racism tomorrow, we would have to exist another 600 to 800 years without racism to have the same amount of overarching culture to swallow up the blight.  That we've come this far already, in only a matter of a dozen generations or so, is - to me at least - a point to celebrate.  Especially when we consider the fact that in such a short time, there are 15% of non-whites in the US Congress, vs. 4.2% non-whites in the much more ancient (and far less racist) British Parliament.  Put that in your clay pipe and smoke it.

Just saying.  Since this week is a week once reserved for, among other things, thanking God, being with family, celebrating our heritage; now it's a week to be reminded of white racists imperialists slaughtering godlike indigenous people in order to set up a holiday which is only good as a means for increasing Wall Street's bottom line.  I thought it was worth the reflection.