The More Things Change

As the old saying goes: the more things change, the more things stay the same. This certainly holds true for our nation in regards to progressing towards equaliity. When Barrack Obama was elected as the first Black President of the United States in 2008, many tried, erroneously, to proclaim it the begining of a post racial society. They couldn't have been more wrong. I asked how much progress had been made, genuinley, when, although Obama was President, young Black men like Oscar Grant were still getting shot in the back while in handcuffs, by Police, in public? Has "progress" been made since the Civil Rights movement, which really was an extension for equal rights fought for since our country's early history? I think one can make the argument that there has been some progress. Now instead of Mexicans and Blacks being segregated in parks, movie theatres, and schools, from Whites, now they get to be segregated in prisons. To say that we live in a post
racial society where everyone is equal and has the opportunity to pull themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps, is a fallacy. Not only that, but it's a Red Herring to distract from the real issues of inequality. I don't want my ethnic heritage to be denied or ignored, it's not what was being asked for, the point is not being held back as a result of it. There are still serious issues regarding not only race but economic class, that need to be addressed and rectified in this great work in progress that is our nation. Perhaps as a result of the declining public education system, which I fear is by design as a way of the Republicans keeping the populus ignorant enough to support and vote for them against their own best interest, that we have lost sight of history and are therefore are doomed to repeat it. From the blatantly racist laws of Arizona regarding racial profiling and the attack on Ethnic Studies, to the scapegoating of illegal immigrants in
Californian politics, the Tea bagger movement, the attempt of Texas education officials to censor the truth in textbooks about slavery and civil rights, to the expansion of modern day slavery: prisons. All of the gains fought for and paid for with lives to move this nation towards the principles it was founded on, are now under attack with a desperate zeal. The more things are progressing, the more they are being attacked as an attempt to go back in time, an attempt to be blind to the truth that has been exposed through the struggle and sacrifice by those who sought to lead our nation towards the rhetoric it was founded upon. So it becomes neccessary for us as a nation who truly value the vision of what this country is suppossed to be, to fight now as before, perhaps even more, to make those dreams embedded in the conscience of our nation a reality. I've seen the past and I am not going back.

Motecuzomatzin