There is a racial message behind this trial, and that is that we are still racially divided. This is not news to anyone. It is not true of everyone, but it is a reality that all of us have to live with.
We are confronted with a minority of the population that wants nothing more than more blood, blood along racial lines.
There is not a single message, but if we are going to pick a message from this to pursue, it should be that we need to decide what direction to take racial conflict.
There are many historical models. These fall, more or less, into two separate categories. One is absorption, the other is extinction. Diversity can provide strength. This is the lesson of natural selection. It is so powerful, that almost all life reproduces sexually and all life above the level of single cell animals and a plant or two follows this path. Extinction, logically, is a bad path.
You can guess where I'm going if you read my blog, but let's ask why race has risen so high in the public consciousness today and why it rose previously.
In the 1960s, race was important because it was the first time that both sides of the equation (those in favor of extinction, black and white; and those in favor of desegregation (absorption)) had the freedom of thought (through a balance of power) to understand and act on the issues involved as groups. Society went for absorption and the transition was a modestly violent one which was followed by a period of relative peace.
Two things are happening now. One is that the balance of power is shifting further. Many see this as being along racial lines, but it is also along economic lines and religious lines. Another is that we are exporting our economy to China. The first thing means that there will be a period of instability as races, economies and religions struggle to determine their place in the new power structure. The second means that the power of the country, its financial stability and its ability to provide positive opportunities to all groups is going to degrade rapidly.
The individual countries will also have to sort their new place in a world dominated by China.
If we fight amongst ourselves as a result of a single one act play by two actors, as opposed to seeking positive lessons from this, we play into the hands of our enemies. If we are distracted by the drama from what is really important, learning to live together, finding the power of diversity and, of course, recovering our manufacturing and stopping the bloodletting to China, then we will show that our society has no long term intelligence and both sides of the racial divide will share equally in the pain that follows.
Benjamin Franklin is credited with the summation, "if we do not hang together, we shall certainly hang separately." This applies to all western civilization, not just the multiple sides of the U.S. racial divide. The rope we hang from will be made in China, of course.
Another lesson is that while we must recognize that we are at war with China, we must also recognize they are a part of the diversity equation. They are the only ones looking at population control logically and not emotionally and they are the only ones recognizing as a country the value of using economies as the machines of war. How we apply this lesson also will answer how we survive and perhaps if we survive as a species...at least for now.
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