NYPD Officer James Kobel (above), Deputy Inspector responsible for combatting discrimination and harassment in the workplace, has jumped before he was pushed. Despite his progressive-sounding title, it turns out that he is yet another white supremacist in humanitarian clothing. Despite his day job, Kobel had been posting racially, ethnically and religiously insulting messages on white rant sites.
This sort of revelation–the numbers hastened of late by the events in Washington, DC–are almost becoming hum-drummingly regular. “Oh, there’s another one.” Not so long ago, before I lost him as a friend, I had an online argument about whether or not there is systemic racism in America. My ex-friend said there was a dearth of real evidence. I replied, “apart from the lucrative business in slavery for 2.5 centuries, what about the Three-fifths compromise during the Constitutional convention of 1787/8?” Racism was enshrined in US law from the beginning. I never heard from him again. (“Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind–or better, my prejudice–is made up!”
As an ex-pat American, and having spent most of my adult life abroad, my wife and I tried living in the US again from late 2016 until July 2020. I was aghast at the number of confederate flags I saw flying wherever we went. I was even more bothered by the sort of racist talk I heard from idiots who thought that all white-skinned people felt like they did. I sometimes felt like I was in a seedy re-make of “Gone with the Wind”, particularly the scene wherein war had been announced after the shelling of Ft. Sumter and all the young beaux were getting excited at the prospect of engaging and defeating the United States. That didn’t go to plan.
So here we are again. Back to the future to the past to…well, you get it. We human beings really don’t learn from our mistakes–not collectively anyway. Some individuals do learn–once they have been burned by their zealous desire for violence, or have been injured, or lie dying, maybe thinking, “I really screwed up!” But no, this life is not a rehearsal. It’s all we get. And for all the shit we humans bring to life, I still believe it is sacred. But right now, my sole thought about the future of the US is that–if it doesn’t totally tear itself apart–its salvation may very well lie in its ‘browning.’ In other words, in the reduction of the white majority to just another racial/ethnic group among others, with no claims of ‘majority’ to justify its supposed ‘right to rule’. God hasten the day!
JACK N. LAWSON - author • speaker • trainer 