This Never Ending Cycle needs to stop: Or, why I am totally pessimistic that current events won’t bring real change in the near term, but remain hopeful that in the longer term we’ll become the Society our Founders promised and the majority of us want

An observation I made a few decades back is that Communism can only work in small communities. On a larger scale, say any decently sized city or town, let alone the county or State level, such a system quickly falls apart. It’s unsustainable for a myriad of reasons, not least of which is basic human greed and the overriding need of some to be Alpha (which, I would argue, is a biological drive necessitated by evolution). While we’ve had better success in the US with (what I call) Democratic Republicanism (in the classical sense, not the Republican political party, which is a disaster and currently advocating Authoritarianism over Democracy), the recent spate of White Police Killing Black Men and the Underlying Systemic Racism That Pervades Every Little Corner of Our Society has shone a light on the many, many failings of, well, us. Us as a Nation, Us as a Society, Us as Human Beings.

But, let’s be honest here. This isn’t merely an American Problem. The protests in Europe are proof of that. China’s continued oppression and gathering into concentration camps of the Uigher is again proof (let’s not open the other Chinese Can of Worms, which is the general oppression and authoritarian control of its people). The systemic and ongoing ethnic cleansing perpetrated upon the various Native peoples of the Americas (and Australia), again, proof. We as a species will take any difference, perceived or real, and use it to hold one portion of the population above the other. Take anything: hair color, eye color, skin color (obviously), gender, sexual orientation, identity, religious background, ethnicity, language, city/county/State/Country/Region of origin, education, technological acumen. It’s all been used before, today, and will be again as an arbitrary demarcation of those who have the power and control, and those who are mere thralls.

While I would be happy to know that the current Black Lives Matter protests and the sudden White Introspection will someone magically erase not just 400 years of Black Oppression, but the tens of thousands of years of human monstrosity perpetrated upon our very selves, I would be a fool to believe it. The White Introspection, for all the headlines, is nascent (I would also argue this for Male Introspection), and strikes me as merely reactionary. Something that will die down into the background once enough concessions (not real change) have been made, enough police departments have been rejiggered in just the right way to, on the surface, appear to address the Police Power/Black Community Subjugation imbalance (if we’re really lucky one or two police departments of significant size will make real and lasting positive changes, but I’m not holding my breath). An honest perspective is that we, as a species, as a Society, are 50 to 100 years away from honest, I-Can-Tell-The-Difference, For-The-Betterment-of-Everyone change (ok, maybe 25 to 40, but in all this we’re still talking about the very real possibility of a Trump Second Term, which, to be honest, in light of all the civil and social upheaval and general social anaphylactic reaction to the man, shouldn’t even be on the table).

It’s been 158 years since Lincoln emancipated the slaves, 155 since General Granger announced the federal orders that all slaves in Texas where free. And, in all that time the White Powers that Be have used every trick; dirty, clean, legal, extralegal, downright illegal; to make sure that those people who were once slaves and their descendants will remain forever outsiders in America, all the while living, breathing, eating, fucking and spending the Almighty Dollar to keep White Society elevated.

For all our talk of us Northerners being so much better and more inclusive than our Southern cousins, we’re just as racist, bigoted and inhumane to each other as anyone else, anywhere else. We’re either too polite or too chickenshit to be open and honest about our general shittiness. Still, we do it while holding ourselves above our “backwater” Southern family, again proving our own ingrained and systemic hatred for “The Other” while putting our hypocrisy on full display.

I end here. While I remain pessimistic that the current Great White Societal Awakening will have meaningful and lasting effects in the immediate term, I do hope that I am wrong. That my pessimism is wholly misplaced, that this time is truly, honestly, different. That we as a Nation that has promised so much, but failed so many so often, will learn, grow, become better. That a More Perfect Union is in actuality attainable, and that More Perfect Union will finally bring Justice and Equality for All.