It seems we are, in so many ways, moving backward in time. I am hearing, seeing, reading of an increasing acceptance of racist views expressed and acted upon. I am hearing it, as in hearing expressed, to my face, right here where I live.

It started with the Muslims post-September 11. It moved to immigrants of all kinds, but especially, you know . . . the brown ones. Now to African Americans. As with all public discourse on the topic of race, the Native American population is now and forever after ignored: the most invisible of the invisible, simply beneath notice on virtually every public radar screen. And Asians are always the club used to beat everyone else over the head: they have succeeded, why can’t you?

Racism on the march, or so it seems. And yet I am interested in differing viewpoints: here’s one that gave me pause. In Mother Jones, the writer points out that while what happened in Jena was unacceptable and deserves attention, there is much, much more to be done internally, within the black community and it is the lack of activist attention to those issues which grieves the writer:

The 1960s Civil Rights Movement had to be about what whites were doing to us. Any modern movement needs to be focused inward, on what blacks are doing to themselves or what we’re failing to pragmatically respond to.If you want to stick it to the man, let’s police our own neighborhoods. Let’s snitch. A lot. Let’s make our schools so good they’re suing us to get in. Let’s take care of ourselves and outlive the bastards. Let’s stop using corporal punishment as our primary means of child discipline, limit their TV time and read to them every night. Any one of these will do more for us than a thousand Jenas.

Mind you, the writer’s caution, her wish, comes on the heels of a recent study showing a white male ex-con has a better chance of getting a job than an African American man with no criminal record:

A telephone survey of the same employers followed. For her black testers, the callback rate was 5 percent if they had a criminal record and 14 percent if they did not. For whites, it was 17 percent with a criminal record and 34 percent without.

I am not into blaming the victim and the Mother Jones writer isn’t either. I despise the increasing evidence of racism in society and I’m not imagining it. It’s everywhere. And studies like the one discussed in the New York Times fill me with despair.

That’s a huge battle, one I fear we are losing to right wing fear and zealotry and the us-them ranting of the loons-as-patriots, which drowns out any meaningful public discourse on any topic not seen as supportive of the status quo c. 1900. I don’t think that is a battle that can be fought internally and yet there are internal battles that can be fought and won: safer neighborhoods, fighting the anti-snitch message, community involvement in education and schools, HIV/AIDS education, promoting good health, reducing teen pregnancies and encouraging responsible fatherhood.

Our government is off the rails and it is uncertain whether, if ever, it will be restored to any sort of competency or responsibility to the citizenry. In the meantime, it is incumbent upon each of us to do what we can, when we can, to improve our own lives and the lives of those around us, and to start right now. It can’t wait. We have to reclaim our communities, our connections, our honor and decency toward one another, and we need to hurry. The fraying remnants of our bonds with each other are all we’ve got right now. Let’s “stick it to the man” by helping each other.

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