umair haque is the author of this blog post below. It is eloquent and universal. Umair, who styles himself a "vampire," has the disease that makes people allergic to sunlight. Erythropoietic Protoporphyria. He almost died because he was not diagnosed.
This world, or at least the humans on it are also undiagnosed and sucking each other's blood, because we are afraid and think the only way to be safe is to bloody up others. Umair's is a good post. This is mine.
Twenty years ago I had been told I would not live much longer and I realized I could return to the high prairie. Focus. Here I am. I'm white but I've been around the rez for fifty years. I sharply understand what the indigenous activists in Western Canada, people you do not really picture in your mind and nor ever read their words, are shouting about this Mexican border atrocity. It has been done to them as soon as contact was made. And there are plenty of other examples.
Homonids, Homo Sapiens in the present version, carry with them, AS them, the history and impulses of primates (apes). The predominant near-identical basic genomes are shared among them, though they make a big fuss about a few percentage points of difference. (I don't know how the percentage translates into actual numbers of individual variant genes which would be made even more various by the environment.) That is, the potential for violence, cruelty and hatred is in every human being, always there to be activated and move us back into ape instincts. Thus, we are always sowing dragon teeth among us, ready to leap in murderousness when conditions are right.
At the level of chimps, we understand deception, bluffing, and creating bonds through intimacy. Long before primates, mothers and sometimes fathers developed the gene-inscribed instinct to protect children. Even ants risk their own lives to save the eggs. This makes a very effective weapon. Even Trump says his children are "off-limits" though he himself took them into criminal territory.
But I don't think Trump is the one with the vision. He has no vision, only reflexes, and must stay in touch with those who have a plan, chiefly Putin. Trump feels he is smarter, more important, because he finally has a "dad". Putin is thinking in terms of world domination, not just America and not Manhattan. Trump is a predatory capitalist. Putin is far beyond that and can easily sacrifice Trump. Some have suggested that for Trumpists prison is a safer place that the streets. Maybe Trump thinks he can kill people on 5th Avenue and get away with it. Putin has people who can make it happen without anyone realizing until it's too late.
This country -- actually plural since Canada is out of the same box and also Mexico since they are mostly -- and frankly -- still indigenous -- has a ghastly history supported by microbes (mostly smallpox) and propelled by the insupportable conditions in Europe. The whites came in flight from danger and killed, kidnapped, and enslaved everyone they could. My aunt's mother was scooped up on the streets in London, brought with shiploads of orphans to populate the prairies. When the Ukrainians were starving to death, some moved to the high prairie, a tough place survivable with luck and lots of children to do the work.
Agriculture is only about ten thousand years old. It supports autocratic patriarchs and slavery. Blackfeet, Cree, et al, were not quite pastoral until the horse and sheep came along, but they were not simple hunter/gathers either. Their culture was complex, governed by the seasons, lived in small groups with a family base, highly moral which means they survived by cooperation. Everyone closely guided -- I said guided, not guarded -- children. There are stories about arrogant, better-than-everyone kids who didn't think of anyone but themselves. They were simply left behind when the camp moved.
The advent of the industrial revolution and now the technological revolution have dislocated the rules for how to be human. People are confused and it is ironically painful that they prefer to be numb. Governing is done by choosing an adversary and throwing him or her into prison. Poor, dark people who don't speak English (PROPER English) are blamed and scapegoated. Shot in the streets.
The criterion of wealth is more powerful that skin color. An ebony person is respected and loved if they have enough money. Dark people know this. Skin color is a lazy criterion. There is no such thing as "race" which is the supposed justification for grouping people. The dominant heritage in the US is German, not English, and Elizabeth II is German. She had to change her name in WWII. Think about that. (She's very rich. Her grandson just married a woman who would have been defined as black, though the prejudiced person appears to be her white father.)
Where we are now has a long history and I've been part of it. In childhood my family was Republican with streaks of cooperative prairie socialism. I was a patriot because what else was there? Then in high school black people began to be part of my scene and eventually engulfed my neighborhood. When I went to college, I deliberately reached out to every form of human portrayed by Malvina Hoffman, whose Hall of Man was dispersed because some called it racist. On the rez I felt the power of being white, but also worked alongside "Indians." As an animal control officer, I discovered what was worse than the rez -- cruelty and torture that grew out of small offences like too much barking or dogs running free.
Seminary is where I met the real evil, though theoretically not in UU circles where they were arrogant enough to believe that being loved and patronized by them was salvific. The Jonestown Trump-type who served Koolaid talked that way, too. The idea that the 9.9% ARE the self-defined and protected American aristocracy is convincing. It explains the evils of protectionism, superiority, and child-napping and how they have taken over this country, intimidated our citizens, and concentrated our media on crime, which it celebrates as bravely defiant, if lethal. Sad.
I am not saved by living in a small town on the High Line along the border with Canada. I don't know whether people are trying to come through the Port of Entry an hour's drive north of me. Black people stand out. Indigenous people do not -- many of us on both sides are brown. I am not -- I'm pink with speckles. But I look for eyes, I listen for voices, and I react to crying children. It's only a matter of time until the revolt begins. I can only hope it is elected rather than violent, though the violence is always there and the 9.9% know they can snuff much of it with predatory capitalism -- take away the life-sustaining drugs, take the savings, take the Social Security, take home ownership, take away health care . . . and so on.
Love ain't gonna do nothin', Sweetie.
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