Have you ever watched one of those American detective movies where the police spray a phosphoric material on the scene of the crime and then when they turn off the lights all blood traces that were invisible suddenly glow in the dark like a carnival? This is what happens when we focus the light of awareness on our own mind. We can detect traces of self deceit and personal bullshit.
The disease of power practice and abuse, the denial of privilege while practicing it. I see that all the time in others. How can I be sure I am not personally practicing it. What if I also have florescent blood on my own walls. could it be that my own floors are smeared with glow-in-the-dark blood ? Well whenever i spray the detector and turn off the light, i see it, it is there. My own 'whiteness' stares me in the face.
My own great grand father owned a black slave! He 'liberated' 'his' slave before he died. My Dad's grand father died in 1905 when my grandfather was still a child. He didn't free the slave because he thought slavery was wrong. He did it because the government commanded people to free their slaves. When Lincoln declared war against all those who keep slaves in all the world, the directive trickled down to people like my father's grandfather. He was forced to release 'his slave' out of fear of punishment.
I do not feel guilty because of what my 'great' grandfather did. I don't know the man. I do feel responsibility. I only recently realized this is Karma I hold and need to clean up. After educating myself about the matter and a lot of contemplation, I now know that some of the privilege I inherited was built on the pain of someone who my family owned like an object and used for free to do all the hard work. I inherited a better place in society and more advantages because of slavery! The ex-slaves did inherit land later when my father's tribe divided their tribal land among the individual tribe members. The now free slaves inherited as much as those who were not slaves. It is worth mentioning here that women didn't inherit anything. They were not allowed to inherit or expected to object to that. They were not allowed to inherit land in particular. The tribe gave land to their ex-slaves but not to their own daughters. Sexism is much stronger than racism. That is a conclusion I made a while ago.
I still hold this tribal Karma that needs cleaning. Most people do. We can clean it up by applying more awareness, making sure we don't use, abuse power and privilege that society gives us. This power is not real power. It is not my power or yours. It is power of injustice. It is not the kind of power that helps a person grow and become the best they can be. It is an illusion of power that is based on taking away the power of others. We can clear up our collective Karma by making a firm stand against injustice. We can make mindfulness, especially of power and privilege, a daily practice. We can turn action for social justice into an integrated and inseparable part of daily life and making sure that in our mind justice cant be divided. We can't demand equality for these people but not those, we can't fight for our own freedom yet ignore others who are oppressed directly or indirectly by us. An example is: some men who want to liberate Palestine from the Zionist control and abuse, yet are not willing to treat women as humans with equal rights. They don't want to give up their male privilege even if the price is Palestine! if they are equal to women then they will loose their privilege over half the people in this planet. that is a lot of fake power to give up.
Sometimes I catch myself being a hypocrite. I'd like to be hypocrisy free, I will eventually. I hope. It starts with awareness, being able to identify the hypocrisy is the first step to getting it out of my system. How do i deal with myself when i do catch myself doing it? I used to get all self righteous and sometimes angry at my imperfection. Now i laugh at myself yet still i try to analyze the conditions that lead to this and how to avoid this self deceit from happening in the future.
Today I caught myself being a hypocrite. I was thinking:' I need to shed a few kilos, i want to loose 0.5 kilos per day. I'm not eating today... I'll fast today! Yes, I'll fast in solidarity with the prisoners who are fasting in protest and those who are starving of hunger!' What? Did I just try to fool myself? I already decided to not eat for the purpose and with the motivation of loosing weight. Now I'm claiming I'm doing it as an act of solidarity with the oppressed, what a hypocrite! That's me 'wanting to feel good by convincing myself that I am more compassionate to others and selfless than I really am. Many people do what I caught myself doing here, act with selfish motivation yet pretend and even convince themselves they have another 'good' selfless motivation; They are contributing to justice and relieving suffering. This self deceit is a mechanism people use to ease their guilt that comes from feeling bad for not taking enough or real action, a way to avoid the inconvenience, effort and any negative consequences that we have to endure when we are involved in real action.
I laughed at myself. My privilege makes such deceit possible, I am not in prison , I am not starving, I have more choices than them. Unlike them, I can choose to eat or not to eat. In this case I tried to make myself feel good at their account, by lying to myself.
It is good I caught myself and that the idea of hunger reminded me of those with very little choices. I do have much less choices than many, but still, I have much more choices than many. Even though I'm not at the very bottom of the totem pole, I am still angry at the system we live in, and especially those on the very top. Those with the power and money to solve world hunger and war and make many diseases disappear yet choose not to do that, because their system is based on inequality, and they convinced themselves they are more special and deserving than the rest of humanity. The only ones ultimately served by the pyramid of power system are those on the top. At the corner stone. The very tip.. The creme de la creme.. The shit of the shit , Whatever happens beneath, they're fine. That's how they set things up. that's how they would like things to stay. But they can't, because change is the nature of things, part of life and being, no one can ever stop change.
Those in control don't want to give up power. Those not in control but have a little power also don't like to give up what little they have, no one wants to give up any power no matter how little. That's ironic because the system wouldn't exist if we are not invested in it. The game cannot go on if we get up and leave! . The system is a privilege system based on standards and rules that were decided in the past by rich white men. The system is owned and controlled by ruling elites and it oppress not only people of color, but now, the same people it claims to represent, the 'white' people in the west now has joined the suffering. The 99% toil and suffer so that the 1% can sit back on their lazy asses, pretend to be civilized and smart, hoard resources and drown their conscious & consciousness in luxury.
Why, then, won't the 99% get up and leave? Flip the table and the chips and the fake money and the whiskey drinks? Why does the system that serves only 1% continue to control, kill, starve, and hurt the 99% and they can't seem to change it? The 99% know who the 1% are, how come they still can't change things?
Can't or won't? There is different levels of investment in the idea of changing the system. Those with some money in the banks don't want the banks to disappear, those who are homeless or penniless are not attached to banks. Old systems aren't going away because we are attached to them somehow. Who is we? We here refers to the collective will of the people, those who come under the pyramid's corner stone. The 99% are not working together with the same goal, but the 1% are. An example is the police, they belong to the 99%, army too, many who belong to the 99% directly enforce the system, many help it, many buy into racism and don't want to give away the few perks that were bestowed on them by the system , they don't want to loose their place on the pyramid. They are invested in the pyramid system, then, and are deceiving themselves when they say they want change.
Each of us needs to take a deep real look in the mirror, a real deep look. and ask: Where is my social privilege, where is my fake power, who has is worse than me and why? Not only who has is better than me?, and why?.
Why do people suffer? because they belong to these not those, by birth, because suffering in this game of pyramid is dealt according to your position on the pyramid. If you're black, you will get a worse treatment than if you were white. I you were white you get white privilege, and if you are male, you get male privilege.
Are males ready to give up their male privilege? Are whites willing to give up their white privilege? Are those with investments willing to not get a return on their investment?
The current system will only evolve into something else if each of us examine their relation with our own power and privilege and how we exercise them, if we are serious about change. As parents, in relationships, at work, with people in our lives. With people who are not in our lives.
Open your mind and heart and know yourself. You might be one of those enabling oppression. If you are a male and don't know what male privilege is then how do you know you don't have it or practice it? How do you know if you are being a racist if you don't know what being a racist means? Wether you're white or not, if you don't know what white privilege is then don't expect yourself not have it, you are part of the system. Ignorance of your privilege is part of your privilege and role. If you live on the 10th floor doesn't that logically imply that there are 9 floors beneath you?
In the power pyramid system we live in, certain values are encouraged and spread throughout the empire, values that are programmed into people's mind using popular media, corrupt values that serve the rulers goal of : divide and conquer. These poisonous values are not part of human nature. They make people go crazy. They ensure people are separate and isolated and too afraid to trust other humans or try to connect with them on a deep level. They promote sex but spread ideas they invent like 'sibling rivalry', a competition they claim as natural between sisters and brothers. Mothers are aggravating and their visit is something undesirable when you are an adult, isn't that an image they present often as the 'norm', the 'standard'? maybe the Hollywood standard, but that is not the human standard. Another example is how suffering is treated like shame by popular culture; If you are suffering that means you are not in control, if you are you wouldn't be in pain. Either someone is causing you pain so that means you are weak, or you are causing pain to yourself, which means you are a looser, in both cases, you are still in pain which means you couldn't find or afford a treatment, it means you are a failure. This is what we are taught by the capitalist imperialist systems in power, pyramids within the big pyramid. Systems that were put in place by powerful white men who ruled and still rule our world and mentality. The system looks like a pyramid with a few hundred people on top floating above the system and above all rules, laws, or moral obligations. this gave them an illusion of being in control. But now that that too much shit has hit the fan, they are loosing control, everyone is affected, all humans, all creatures on earth, our environment condition is dangerously unhealthy. We're all in it together. All life on Earth is in danger now, including the power freaks sitting on top of their stupid pyramid.
It is the time to make a choice, our future will be the sum of our individual choices , our collective mind produces our collective future. We can each look at our role and place and start to untangle our selves, educate ourselves, listen, learn, act, stay honest especially with our self, learn to open our minds & hearts, and stay open, start building support systems to help those who decide to stop protecting and sustaining the current system. Instead of fighting what is here, we need to act with the future we want in mind. Instead of donating money for 'charity' we need to give love and time and attention. We need to give up fake power and share life and time and love with those underneath us in the social pyramid.
We also need to look at the past, not just the present. We are who we are now because of the past. we cant ignore what we inherited. Americans and Canadian 'white' individuals who are descendants of the 'pilgrims', 'pioneers', 'explorers' and settlers , cant ignore their ancestors and parents' contribution to the collective native indigenous peoples' pain body. Europeans who enslaved black Africans, and all those whose ancestors, including the Arabs, who enslaved and abused human beings, have a responsibility towards the descendants of victims of their ancestors, towards justice. If they reaped privileges that were built on injustice then how can they ignore their responsibility in healing that big wound. Men too have a responsibility towards females in the same way, human society is still built on the shoulders of women's free labor at homes. A lot of women serve men, children and take care of the elders for free. They get no benefits or insurance, they get few privileges, the have more respect than women who have no children or are unmarried. These are only a few, there are many more examples of injustice and people who need to step up and take responsibility.
There is no time for guilt, there is no value in guilt. Guilt should be very short, like a poke of a needle, a reminder that something should get done, when guilt becomes a permanent feeling it is only because what needs to be done is being ignored. Chronic guilt is a way to avoid action. Responsibility on the other hand is: responding with ability. It is charged with focused effective action. Without action, change will still happen, but not in the direction we desire.
There are consequences for ignorance, even if we don't know what they are. We will find out, eventually, maybe it will be too late to affect things. There are consequences for wearing rosy glasses and believing everything is pink. We need to get serious about saving ourselves and our planet. We are all in it as one. We cannot be really free if our minds are enslaved by ignorance and denial. We cannot really see if our vision is blinded by privilege and power. I wish that we all wake up and look at the mirror. I wish we all spray on the special glow-in-the-dark blood detection substance and turn off all sounds, turn off the lights and look inside.
Jan 6-2012