if a tiger . . .

Sun 8.1.21,

I have a case before the Maine Human Rights Commission and I am researching past cases.  I tend to take lightly the complaints Blacks make about discrimination; it is something else in our society that is upsetting them, I assume since there are a lot of upsetting things in our society.  But after reading a pile of cases from the HMRC, Blacks are discriminated.  Crude, ignorant people, landlords, use that weapon, belittling them, mistreating, calling names, and their children are not spared.  They write this stuff on the internet and are easily found culpable by the Commission.  Dumb, dumb, arrogant moves.

The lower down the rung of society one goes, discrimination is blatant.  Lower down the rung of society does not mean poverty.  Many rich people in fine houses are part of that rung and discretely or openly discriminate.  In our capitalist system we tend to equate material success with sterling qualities.  Think of Bill Clinton in the oval office with Monica, a rich sleaze playing games with a young person unaware of the moves in his game.  Arrogance is a large part of discrimination.  I am better than you, and know more than you do.  I will get what I want and move on.  And then there is the aggressive factor in discrimination, deadly, with horrors sprinkled throughout humanity’s history for no discernable reason.

I don’t know how I got on this topic, I guess reading those cases is an eye opener.  It started with my thoughts on Native Americans and the meaning of Mitakue Oyasin, the relationship of respect one has with all sentient and non-sentient beings on earth.  Meeting other and respecting it means being in the world.  I am reminded of Juan Matus asking his American apprentice if a tiger came charging would be angered, insulted, aggrieved by the tiger charging at him as he is with his fellow human beings.  No, he would not.  He respects the animal and takes it seriously.  But does he take himself and his fellow human beings seriously?  No we do not.  We live in a world that has totally blinded us, moving through life with the eyes closed.  We doesn’t have to think at all.  It’s all been decided. 

But the tiger is out there and will snatch little Monica and give her an eye opener that will set the rest of her life in order, change her priorities and place her outside of society’s enclosure.  She will have a truth that most would rather not know.  Discrimination is the control we place on life to protect us from real life, A Native American once said to me as we were discussing our respective cultures that he didn’t see any value in work, and he didn’t understand why it was so valued in my culture.  Whoa!  I had to think about that for a moment.  Our culture, our society needs this work ethic to maintain itself.  His culture was not based on the capitalist system. 

We are hardly present in our lives and mostly react out of an ignorance that is based on a certainty fed to us from day one.

The favorite post this month has been Simulation Theory