As a nation, the United States of America went mad the moment it constituted itself to be “the land of the free”, that held slaves. From the very beginning, this was a completely contradictory concept because freedom promotes all rights, while “slavery is against all rights.” Since they are mutually exclusive, their sharp contradiction has resulted in a severe mental illness: a national, schizophrenia. It is psychologically impossible for any individual who genuinely believes in freedom to enslave another person. “A free country with slaves” is an oxymoron, and its ongoing effort to define itself within this illogic has made the United States of America moronic.
Ancient forms of slavery were under no such psychological pressure. The Greek or the Roman masters did not have to biologically degrade their slaves. Although the ancient slave clearly belonged to an oppressed, lower class, members of that class were not regarded as other than human beings. Indeed, under certain conditions, Roman slaves might even become Roman citizens. But, of course in these ancient cultures, no one ever conceived of being “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” A millennium later and an ocean away in a “New World” were a different story.
The United States of America was constituted for the exclusive benefit of white people who migrated to these shores from Europe. Black people, who were brought in captivity from Africa, were deemed sub-human, and naturally suitable to be enslaved. Only through the armed establishment of a self-serving doctrine of “white supremacy” could the new “free country” masquerade as a sane society. Otherwise, its espousal of freedom must resound with psychotic hypocrisy, which, of course, it does, anyway. As a Body Politic, the United States of America appears extremely schizoid.
Thomas Jefferson saw the maddening problem and said:
“We have a wolf by the ears.
We can neither hold, him
nor safely let him go”
The nation has undergone major changes since Jeffersonian democracy was first advocated, but the fundamental contradiction bedeviling America’s political character remains. They who promulgated African slavery could not truly champion human freedom. Any vestige of an enlightened humanism was undermined by an overwhelming commitment to avarice. Today it appears white Americans cannot yet let go of that greed.
Despite what they do or say, those who seek answers to present race questions must address the national madness. We must go back to the point at which the Constitution’s framers fundamentally contradicted themselves. It has been left to present generations to overcome epoch psychological damage done all humanity by America’s confounded founders.
The notion of a nation, democratically run by individuals who are “free and equal”, was noble and novel when this nation was new. It was corrupted, however, by a greedy demand for African slaves that required a “peculiar institution.” The institution’s peculiarity lay in holding slaves in a “land of liberty.” For individuals who advocate freedom to simultaneously enforce slavery requires radical psychological adjustments. If in fact, “all men are created equal” then persons who are enslaved must not be "men.” As it was constituted, the United States, therefore, politically enumerated the African slaves, but counted each as equivalent to only “three fifths” of white “free persons.” This 40% political discount had then to extend to every significant aspect of American life, and a national rationale be developed to accommodate it. The rationale manifests as the assumption of a “white supremacy” over all colored people, staunchly enforced by arms and embedded bullshit. As a result, America’s schizophrenia finds conflicting personalities co-existing in one Body Politic. The nation was born nuts.
Issues have raised that exhibit its madness; like so-called “affirmative action.” The fact is nothing like “affirmative action” can be found anywhere in nature. No species of neither plant nor animal life can voluntarily relinquish its place in the food chain to enable another to eat better. It is not to be expected. Food is too hard to get with the regularity life requires from day to day. Any men who expect other men to lift them to a food chain level of equality are generally delusional. Only the ascenders, under their own power, can secure such ascent. Freedom granted out of the goodness of a dominant heart can quickly vanish with any change of that heart. It is just naturally required that our freedom be got by forceful means, so we develop the strength with which to maintain it once we obtain it. Unnatural “affirmative action” issues tend to divert attention from that cold fact.
At present we the “African American” people, seem at a loss to identify what we want freedom politically to be, or liberty to do except tail white people. We may not be quite as psychologically disturbed as the whites we admire and try so to emulate, but almost. If we continue our current effort, we will soon become equally sociophagus, and widely despised. That would doom humanity, because the cure for America’s national irrationality if it comes, will have to be initiated and administered by the descendants of its African slaves. The white American psyche is far too fragile to candidly confront its historic culpability and criminal insanity or to voluntarily relinquish its racist tenets. However:
“You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free”.
This does not simply mean knowledge of the truth creates conditions under which freedom becomes possible: no! The truth will make you free, ready, or not. One is automatically freed from a lie as soon as the truth is known. Consequently, a deft, believable revelation of historical fact is the ready remedy the United States of America really requires. And if delivered by musical means, the revelation of even bitter truth will be a balm to the breast of a savage global sociopath. This can only be accomplished by exercising great care. Nothing drastic. The last thing the criminally insane want to hear is that they are criminally insane. The information tends to drive them crazy. Consequently, in curing this schizophrenic who is armed, and dangerous, extreme caution must be exercised. Persuasion must be gradually applied with great patience. We, who would be healers, must first cure ourselves. For descendants of the African slaves in the United States of America, that is the fundamental challenge of our age.
To begin with, music therapy comes highly recommended. No species of life has anything comparable to music human beings create. It has many rhythms and harmonies, melodies, and lyrics, but regardless of its style, music tends always to act, with great longevity, as a moving, gathering force. Music is magically memorable. It requires and inspires trust. There is no human activity that does not benefit from having some sympathetic strains of music created on its behalf.
In this country, young black people clearly exert a dominant cultural influence through popular music, dance, and athletics. It is they who set standards for many other young racial and ethnic groups, in America, and abroad. It would not be in the perceived interest of the ruling powers to reveal the enormous, global effect of this influence. Nevertheless, it is a force with which to reckon and beckon. Therapeutic information can be musically disseminated to eager young audiences whose influence will then apply to society in general. Popularity can be gained for mental health and harmonious human relationships. Joy exercises a controlling force in our activities wherever it is found.
Today when this nation resembles an insane asylum with the inmates in control, we must do more than redecorate the rooms and rearrange its furniture. We must attack the psychosis that made this a madhouse in the first place. The effort to be “the land of the free” while holding slaves is at the root of America’s historic schizophrenia. It is that essential, national hypocrisy that has yet to be confronted. Our journey into the future ought not to be made without first adjusting for our past misdirection.
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