A White female called Amy Cooper made news when she called the police after seeing a Black man who was bird watching, thinking he was a criminal. The video of her encounter went viral and as it came in the midst of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement became a major symbol of White stereotyping of Blacks. They are permanently suspicious people to the majority of Whites in the US.
The BLM has created a crisis of sorts in the West and both the US and the UK. Many of the long-standing White supremacist issues taken for granted issues are now being challenged. In many cases there is overdoing, but in most cases the fact that it was not challenged militantly for so long shows it’s only now as the West declines that this is possible.
To many, the B-W issue is one of race and is linked to the history of racism inbuilt in the US economy. A large part of the country’s wealth making in the first hundred years is built on slavery. It was considered so natural – that of superiority of Whites and inferiority of Blacks- – that the apartheid/separation was developed to institutionalize discrimination and till date many of its elements stand.
The killing of Roy by a policeman Gauvin was only symbolic of how this society behaves towards its most victimized population after the Native Americans. Given this background, is it possible for the West to conceptualize liberty and then peddle and distribute it to the rest of the world as the champion of human rights and liberty?
The fact that is lost in translation is that racism is really a tool to deny privileges to another, it’s that simple. Many bring it down to skin colour issues and anti-racism in all forms is looked down upon for that reason as reverse racism. But White is not a racial but a privilege category. Many Left Liberals say so, forgetting that the counter is a sign of turning the table on the Whites. History is changing and this is just an indicator.
If extreme and violent racism like slavery was produced in the modern era by the US and it also produced international championship of freedom and liberty, we need to examine both and its needs and role in history. Just as the US economy required cheap or unpaid labour and a large part of the current US status is based on that, the calls for liberty and freedom fulfilled some need as well, including the legitimization of slavery and later the military takeover policy expressed in the post slavery world.
The process is historical in nature which is why one shouldn’t become blatant champions of Western causes without understanding their roots. The world population is going through a change and conventional ideas of governance will not hold sway. That is why investigation of arguments on all matters including “democracy ‘ is needed. It’s necessary to survive in the next post-US era.
