White People Are Not Responsible For Every Problem People Of Color Have

The Whiteout Story (Photo by Yoann Siloine on Unsplash)

First published on Medium.

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Almost every tweet, post, meme, story, essay, podcast, video, TV or radio program seems to point out, and complain about the bad things white people have allegedly done and do to blacks, latinos, American Indians, and others. I am here to say we whites are not responsible for everything wrong with this nation. That said, the 96.61% to 99% we are responsible for, still do not get enough consistent attention in the ways they should.

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Yes, it may seem like liberals talk about people of color all the time now, but Trump, a white person, made sure racism, xenophobia, etc. were going to stay high atop the national agenda the last five years. Otherwise, like nearly every topic of importance brought up before Trump, those issues are whitewashed from the national conversation within weeks of a specific event, or crisis. Of course, to a large extent the media-frenzy intensity, rise and fall, is normal, but the drop off in concern and action by all Americans should not be.

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Those who say Trump is not a racist, or that people of color and white liberals are overreacting, either do not see who attended his rallies, what they wear and promote, or that they are the same ones who help make sure racism is whitewashed from the national conversation, legislative actions, etc. Our consistency of whitewashing and whiteout splatter is legion and lesion. Whites who do not see or know, and that means do not care to know or see, the ways, from day one, help whitewash away the degradations and deaths of Americans of color. The professionals are the whiteout con-artists.

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Okay, there is a lot of terrible history that occurred before any of us were born. Yet, this is how whitewashing begins its insidious and hideous creep into our minds that weakens our spines. If someone is drowning two feet in front of us, nearly 100% of us will try to save them, no matter their color, origin, or gender. When it comes to racism though, whites perceive there are others in front of us who have, or had that responsibility. Unless we have Anti-racist EMT tattooed on our foreheads, we say, “It ain’t my lily white responsibility!”.

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As to historical atrocities, guess who had the same beliefs about their responsibility for how American Indians, black Americans, and other people of color were treated? Yep, a scary, sociopathic high percentage of our white ancestors. Even before slavery ended, Americans had their whitewashing skills honed to perfection including the “great” statesmen, Henry Clay: “Slavery is our misfortune, not our fault.”

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Notice how insidiously Clay slipped the whitewashing worm into our ear to brain canal? It was slipped into his ear by Jefferson, Madison, and Washington. Whites create the problem, then place others in it, scapegoating the past, and the people they harmed. Taking responsibility is never required. Just say slavery or racism is bad, and forget about it; whitewash your hands of it.

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Our presence in the problem creation disappears as multiple levels of whiteout are splashed on the horrible things whites have done. Over a hundred years before the artistry of a similar-looking style was produced (by the real artist of no-relation), whites employed what I call the Andrew Jackson (Pollock) splatter, and splash dash style that uses only mono-color, a.k.a. whiteout con-artistry. “He” (the white con-artist persona) has forever been the con-artist of residence throughout our history. Sadly, some history books, and historians still honor such non-forward looking, brain worm, mono-color, con-artistry. Seen in every major white coverup, and forget about it masterpieces.

DISCLAIMER: I am only using Jackson Pollock’s art and name similarity as an analogy; otherwise, he has no otherdirect relationship to this essay.

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Whitewashing is something nearly every white person has done, consciously or unconsciously; this means every white who is not consistently working toward a more equal, and just society.
Whereas Whiteout con-artistry is the purposeful attempt to paint away the difficult and shameful parts of our history, so we can feel better about our white selves, and dodge our responsibility like Henry Clay, and others did, and do.

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Thomas Jefferson was the visionary of American Indian removal, and a major contributor to our coercive paternalismpalette. Though there are various interpretations of his all men are created equal flourish in the Declaration, Jeffersonpersonally did not refute white supremacy, since he kept people of color under his boot, or hidden in his basement until his death. Along with most every founder and white ancestor, Jefferson’s insufficient courage, consistency, and humanity gave us tremendous problems to resolve. And soon we will pass them onto the future generations, if we stand still, and do not jump in to prevent our democracy from drowning in our whiteout culture.

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We came a hair’s breadth away from eliminating every American Indian from their home by crook and savage hook; then we fabricated millions of excuses about why Indians were the savages. But not only did disease, rape, pillage, slaughter, and fake treaties get us a trillion acres of land, gold was found in Trail Of Tears Georgia, The Broken Promises’ Black Hills, and in 49ers Multiple Tribe Genocide California. Not too bad for the white civilized race.

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Then something not so amazing happened. After tribe genocide, faith-based slavery, liberty-based homeland disenfranchisement, and Jim Crow terrorism, we became the nation that would find a cheap workaround of our hypocritical travesties, murderous tragedies, and christian-traitor insanities.

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The Whiteout Workaround Scam.

The main reason whites may not be responsible for the remaining 2.39% (of the 96.61% to 99% noted above) is only due to the con-artistic whiteout math orchestrated by the splashing, and splattering by our Andrew Jacksons (Pollock) ancestors and today’s versions. These artists of disrepute have spread out all over the nation in search of the slipperiest methods of fabrication, forging, and shape shifting whiteouting for over two centuries. They lash together fragmentary facts and weak theories to paint half truths.

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When you have denied the full truth for so long, the easiest way to hang onto the lies, and keep enough loyalists in the white supremacist ideological concentration camp, is to paint over reality in as cheap a way as possible. Just about anything that has a milligram of plausibility gives your cohort the amount of belief kook-aid they need to hold dear to the overall lie:

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American Indians brought genocide on themselves, and Blacks had it better here than they would have in Africa, and other shit bird drippings of history-denying dumb ass.

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There is so much evidence to trash these white supremacist theories, if you wanted to look for it. However, I am going to focus on two applications of whiteout con-artistry and history forgery. Providing a list of whiteout wrongs only gives the white supremacist the ability to come up with their own bogus list, which returns bullshit believers to square one, since the believer of the bullshit wants to believe it. This means they do little or no research to verify it.

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Actual researching of their bogus list can be more difficult because the references, even though bogus as well, and thin, are voluminous in their fragments of repetition. Many conservative references are sifted from a thin layer of gnarly, sketchy, twisted facts provided by the same bad sources, whether about politics, physical sciences, religion, history, or social science.

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The con-artistry critique will revolve around the American Indian, and black American experience, and how white supremacist whiteout con-artistry tried and tries to discount the quality and quantity of evidence surrounding our horrible persecution of these groups, and the gruesome policies we have implemented. Whiteout punditry, and similar policies are still reverberating through, and damaging, our society.

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The whiteout con-artistry is not sloppy and obvious like seen in redactions of top secret, partially declassified documents. Those using these artistic counterfeit methods have the same evidence available, and time to discover all the real facts, but only use whiteout clickbait and fishy chum to produce a perspective that replicates the conservative’s desired representation.

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Since the mind is very attuned to our own personality traits, every person can be caught up in their own side’s perspective. However, the conservative is less likely to do deep research, whereas the liberal is more curious. This means liberals are much more likely to at least stumble on the actual deep, real facts.

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The framing of this psychological data may seem to favor liberals because a liberal is writing this, or liberals did the social science on it, but it also explains why journalists are mostly liberals, especially those doing deep investigative reporting. There is just no way to avoid conflicts and paradoxes like this. Not accepting these paradoxical differences, always returns us to where we were. We are different in some ways, and deep fact finding seems to be one way liberals, and conservatives differ.

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Conservatives generally base their worldview on a commonsense type logic, not a bad worldview as long as change is not required. It is a worldview that does not need more, or better facts, just the facts that will help continue with its belief system, undeterred. In the two following descriptions, I will explain how whiteout con-artistry has been used by a majority of conservatives to reshape any new and refined facts liberals have developed, to look more like their originalist perspective, which fails our future.

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Now, their truth reshaping is never done completely, but in some cases they have new real facts to throw some whiteout shade on liberal scenarios. Yet the balance of the horribly immense weight is still there. The few new facts developed, while doing nothing to change the overall fact of egregious actions, is another way conservatives benefit from their rigid belief system of what is truth.

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These new facts, no matter how minimal, turn liberals into liars in their eyes. However, it does nothing to remove the terrible truth. But catching liberals in a (supposed) lie is worth a thousand deep truths to conservatives. Historical research is a multi-layered process. New layers are always being developed, sometimes thick, most others very thin. Conservatives find almost no thick new truths because they never want to find them. It is more about reaffirming their old truths, especially with any social science research they may do.

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Adding a thin inner layer of eye soothing whiteout history to the multiple, thick layers, horrible truth onion is not sufficient to change the eye burning reality of our history. When a conservative is attempting to disprove a huge ugly truth, their motives are usually centered on their knowledge of their whiteout gullible, receptive audience, not on the truth of the whole matter. You must be wary of their usage of whiteout in its quantity and quality of truth cover up.

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Whiteout Supremacist Con-Artistry Times Two.

The two methods of whiteout con-artistry, history forgery critiqued here are Constitutional originalism (acrylic), and christian nationalism (watercolors). My father a painter, ironically also a conservative, would appreciate even my minimal knowledge of paints in this analogy-based critique.

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Watercolor paint spreads out and bleeds into any adjacent colors, and it is hard to see where one starts, and the other ends. Though in reality there are different colors, whites are taught to see their color as the only one with value. White is all that whites want to see. Due to this willful obliviousness, conflict occurs, which causes the bleeding. Whiteout is used to cover up these faith-based watercolor crimes.

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Christian nationalism watercolor depictions are also ever encroaching in their desire to overwhelm and control. Its brushstrokes came from the bowels of slave holder heresies, and scriptural blasphemies. A foundational whiteout forgery was the curse of Ham that supposedly justified slavery. This fabricated curse story was just the beginning. From then until now, their watercolor-blind bullshit is used to hide the white cracker sins of Japheth, Shem, and Noah, the three letter (KKK) stooges of Vile Water-colorless ForgeryVille.

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On the other hand, acrylics standout with a three dimensional look, and its potential power. Our Constitution has that rising quality from the standpoint of its actual historical parchment material. It is the original construction material of our government: a two dimensional document that created a 3D reality for us the last 233 years.

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Constitutional originalism acrylics do not blend well. Keeping colors separate is easy for an original parchment document because it is status quo stable, unforgiving, with little leeway… Everything vital is spelled out, or it is not vital, the remainder is up to those who have the power to take it (mostly white males), and make it their own. Yes, new amendments are allowed, but not for large liberalized, diverse, and colorful murals.

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Manifest Destiny was a non-mixing philosophy of constitutional originalism. The constitution was not constructed to seek the truth; it was fixed to what white men desired in the moment. The destiny for Indians was at best to be forced onto reservations, which were made smaller,` and smaller each time a few white men crossed the border for gold, or better land. While our Constitution allows the president to make treaties, and senate to advise and consent; it did and does not insist that actual treaty partners must be consulted, or a treaty’s manifest destiny was to remain whole or inalienable.

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What To Watch For.

The overall premise of this essay began as a critique of individual conservative historians, and how their writing obfuscates and downright lies about our history to paint the mythic ideas of our founding, laws, actions, and other. Thiscon-artistry refutation would have required re-research of the pertinent books I have read, and then finding specific conservative references. Not a project I could undertake in the two days, or so, I have allotted for this essay, even using my Google assistant.

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However, after writing this essay’s original introductory paragraphs I got a new, and better idea. Why are constitutional originalists and christian nationalists allowed to dictate and control so much of our history presentation and progress? I have read enough to know about how the government was set up to be incrementalist in many ways, i.e. Burkean. And of course, christian nationalists insist that being founded as a christian nation means something critical and important today.

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While with whiteout con-artistry, and some obfuscations those premises can be justified, they fail when you read that many founders expected the Constitution would be regularly updated, and our government would not be reliant on christianity. The Treaty of Tripoli with the Barbary Pirates proves our government was not christian, but secular, and our Constitution would not purport to be of, or obligated to, any religion no matter what a christian president said, wrote, or did.

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In addition, the great Thomas Jefferson, exalted by originalists and christian nationalists, blasphemed the new testament, was an Enlightenment Rationalist (a designation christian nationalists despise), and he came up with the separation of church and state. Jefferson wrote, religious opinions of men were not the business of the government.”

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As to the matter of being founded as a christian nation, the 3/5ths clause shows we were just as much founded as a slavery nation. The originalist christians who promoted, or promote either idea should be seen as suspect, especially in how they think we should implement such horribly linked historical artifacts.

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Some framers of the constitution even speculated that slavery would end, maybe a generation or two, after the slave trade was outlawed in 1808. Yet, christian nationalism was given extended life because only minor changes were made to the Constitution after the Bill of Rights were added, and not until the Civil War ended. The two minor change amendments, 11th and 12th, were barely more than typo corrections, not changes in the social or economic structure of the nation. Only the Civil War made possible the 13th through 15th amendments, and likely the 16th (federal income tax) and 17th (popular senate elections).

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Those five amendments were further breakaways from the Articles of Confederation, which is where states’ rights gets its history. Both constitutional originalists and christian nationalists rely on the Articles version of American history. Many of both groups were are aggrieved by those five amendments because it made their actions up to that point and after, look bad, and besmirched their inviolable constitutional vice grip on society.

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The concept of nullification, developed in secret by Jefferson, is his whiteout con-artistry, a remnant of his dissatisfactions with the Constitution. However, to put Jefferson in one basket is a fool’s errand. He would write about his belief in certain things, but then contradict himself in actions. This included the Louisiana Purchase, our first large private property grab, and native land theft, as a new nation. This was in stark contrast to his writings against imperial presidential actions, and a deep belief in small government. The action Jefferson took contributed to one of the worst humanitarian incidents in our history.

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Everything about the Trail of Tears, and after was an American commissioned, whiteout forgery of our native peoples. The government decided American Indians needed to get civilized, but first we would need to kill the Indian, save the man, or the only good Indian is a dead one. In one of the most profoundly horrible ironically tragic combos the nation has ever inflicted, we decimated 12,000+ members of the Five Civilized Tribes, due alone to their removal from the southeastern U.S. to Oklahoma. This is not even to count how starvation and other policies destroyed their people, and other tribe members across the country since then.

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Did you catch that? They are called the five civilized tribes! Our first major whiteout by a constitutionally elected president was to forever corrupt the word civilized. The white lies we tell our white selves. Civilized merely meant white, no matter what you achieved as a person of color, although our history books and political pundits turned it into lazy, drunk, murdering savages. How about that for a whiteout history forgery?

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Imagine your native homeland that included the current 48 contiguous states, shrank from some 20–40 millioninhabitants, dropping to around four million between Columbus and 1776 due to the invaders’ diseases, pillaging, kidnapping, rape, and murder. Then our racist squatter, white American ancestors began to purposely grind the population down even further to only 250,000 native peoples by 1890. While a good portion of deaths came from disease, this was not a consolation for either side, much blood spilling would still have occurred. That is because whites were inept at controlling the shameful, uncivilized, bloodthirsty greed we loosed upon the continent. Little else pushed our often premeditated annihilation plan.

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One of the most self sustaining Indian tribes in American history are likely the Menominee in Wisconsin. Their forestry and lumber mill enterprise began in 1871, and supported an entire self sustaining community until almost all the tribes in America were terminated by our federal government in 1953. That scandalous ruling was reversed in 1971, but only after their tribe was scattered and nearly unraveled.

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The tribe had won an 8.5 million dollar lawsuit, but had to accept termination to receive it, a.k.a. the federal government blackmailed them. Just another example of the uncivilized, lazy, drunk, savage Indian whiteout lie Americans have constantly promulgated. We either never gave them a chance to civilize, or we tried to, or did, destroy them when they did. Whites killed nearly everyone of the million buffaloes in a few years so the Plains Indians could not work their land; our sense of civilized is, and was, extremely fucked up. Such a pathetic and savagely white supremacist history of lying, duplicity, defaming, scapegoating, bullying, and destroying the other in our midst.

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Slavery is the other abomination that we justified in so many ways, it is no wonder the effects have lasted all the way to the present, and will continue without a diverse and systematic disruptive effort. Our Civil War was the culmination of whiteout con-artistry not influencing enough suckers to swallow its belief in slavery idiocy. Luckily, there were enough dedicated white people who teamed up with free black Americans to crescendo at that moment in time. Unfortunately, just as the war was ending, the whiteout returned with a vengeance in a new form, blotting out the sun from shining on the horrors it would produce.

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The Constitution is said to offer important off-ramps for negative associations such as slavery, women’s rights, and native peoples’ degradation. Off-ramps like Jefferson’s all men are created equal statement in our Declaration, but this is as wrong as it is true, meaning there really is no consensus, which has tied it, and the Congress, and Supreme Court in knots. Originalists are fine with this our problem, not their problem conundrum.While any off-ramp that is viable at any point in time must be used by liberals, we are still left with the deadly trapdoor of incrementalism. Originalists never want change, so they can allow people of color to be damaged until most of their fearing-change cohort has died off. Or call it the deadly trapdoor of incrementalism, the die off, off-ramp.

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Since slavery, Jim Crow, removal acts, and gold rush genocides are likely a thing of history, Civil War or other large violent uprisings may not come from the liberal side of things. That said, the constitutional originalists’ inflexibility, and the stranglehold christian nationalists have on politicians, are the main reasons why people of color must wait one to two centuries to see their financial situation come close to matching that of whites. Education consistencies would be required as well. Whether law enforcement and the legal system will ever catch up is doubtful, although if wealth disparities do generally disappear, I guess that is more plausible.

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However, all the predicaments American Indians and black Americans find themselves in, are mostly their own fault, just like Henry Clay said. This is how whiteout con-artistry works its slippery magic. Whites treat the downtrodden we have created as if there is no connection between our actions today, and what our ancestors did 20 minutes, or 20 decades ago. This contrived wall of separation is as Caucasian convenient as it is Racist rubbish.

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Ever heard the phrase, you must put what was done in the past, and who did it, in historical context? This is also subtle brain worm, whiteout con-artistry. While some understanding may be derived in a technical sense, context is another way to lessen the impact of what those actions cause today. In addition, few of the attacks on the groups noted above since our founding, at minimum, have had leaders, people of color, and vocal advocates of change in their midsts who knew better, and made it known to many others.

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Even slave-holder christian leaders knew a revised (and contrived) theological explanation was required to keep slavery going. There were many other instances where these horrible ideas were conjured up by American leaders with a premeditated understanding of their own depravity. Either that is true, or Hitler merely had historical amnesia, and we should honor traitorous, slavery defending scum like Jefferson Davis, Robert. E. Lee, and Nathan Bedford Forrest with statues and other crazy shit. Oh yeah, hypocritically and horribly we have that, don’t we?!

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The End Of The Beginning.

Whites basically have made it possible to push history even farther back, as well as make it blurrier, using historical con-artistry whiteout, and distancing ourselves from our own Hitler, Pol Pot, or Stalin type activities.

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The second defining aspect of our color blind hypocrisy and catastrophe is our hedonistic economic, or gold rush, pillage and rape, nature. Our inability to come to terms with this element of the white personality will take considerable effort. Sadly, few constitutional originalists or christian nationalists will recognize the need to curb their distancing from history, con-artistry nature.

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Third, the economic element is vital to their refusal to agree that we owe people of color anything for past physical assault, and financial devastation. Fully recognizing the current, deep seated harms occurring (greatly influenced by past offenses), and paying to make things right, is off the table because that would force them to agree the past offenses are real. It is another paradox dug in deep, therefore difficult to excavate.

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Finally, paternalism binds all of it together. We know better — a.k.a. the white father knows best — so listen to the Misters and Ministers Whitey. The Whiteys created and create our horrible stew of bad decisions by forcing current and past policies through a destructive prism of economic paternalism. Rather than showing civilized compassion or pushing for equality in any general sense for all Americans, we implemented slavery, Jim Crow, abused generations of students at Indian Boarding Schools, were against public education for poor whites and people of color in the South especially, massively meddled with Indian reservations every twenty years, etc.

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The white males have pushed some form of capitalism without ever giving people of color, as a group, anywhere near the same opportunity to excel as whites in general do now. The destruction of Greenwood or Black Wall Street, the unraveling of the Menominee lumber business, the Jack Johnson riots and lynchings, and removal of the Five Civilized Tribes in and around Georgia, are just four examples of our utter contempt for people of color success.

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More recently, we do no more than stingy, penny-pinching, lopsided welfare, (never free land, etc. like whites), complain about how Indians are taking over things, and mass incarcerate and police-state assassinate Indians and Blacks by multiples more than whites, but still say people of color are uncivilized, lazy, not-real-Americans, drugged up, drunk, threatening savages. Whatever our actual thoughts or statements are in 2021, they reflect minimal, incremental change in our abusive paternal perspective. We know best, but never really try to solve anything: just hurt, then ignore. Hurt, then ignore. Hurt, then ignore.

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How The End Of It Happens.

Not every Republican conservative treats people of color and history in such a disturbing or distorted way. That being said, the overall tendency for the party and similarly focused Americans is to allow the harm to continue. Too many raise even more obstacles to their freedom, opportunities to succeed, and have status as real Americans. For example, the suppression of voting in Republican Party lead states, as well as unequal education funding, healthcare, and living conditions in all states.

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While there are many great ways to accomplish change, most everything moving through Congress is, and will be, incremental in its wide ranging application and success potential. This often means implemented and structured in a piecemeal fashion, or without long term congressional support and funding. Educating the public on racial matters like ending illegal hiring discrimination, and understanding the value of diversity, is difficult with polarization and whiteout con-artistry creating an undulating, and confusing presentation every other administration, or congressional term.

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To extricate ourselves, we need a new plan. Chucking the incrementalism — stumbling around constantly with a foot in a bucket of whiteout — ideology is essential as well. Giving every American the opportunity to chart their own course is paramount. That is without the paternalistic — great white father of status-quo do nothingness — having the final word on who is deemed worthy to enjoy certain rights. Whether it is American Indians, Black Americans, Female Americans, Disabled Americans, LGBT Americans, or any other American, no one should be illiberally restrained any longer by the constitutional originalist, the christian nationalist, or any other force or power.

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Either our Constitution is about freedom, liberty, and the equal opportunity pursuit of happiness for all, or it is not OURs. A constitution that arbitrarily, hypocritically, or prejudicially restricts any American makes no sense, and should be abolished. Luckily, there is another path forward available. I call it the We The People System or WTP System.

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The new platform requires no constitutional changes, but can set us on a path to claim what is ours. Everyone is set on a higher rampart to look the wealthiest and most powerful straight in the eye and compete on an even level, in society, monopolies, and with local, state, and federal officials. A major countervailing force for the good of the all, especially the 99%.

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By Richard The Chwalek.

Read about the higher rampart, other elements and characteristics of the WTP System:

>>>> a.k.a. The Fault in Our Scars…




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