Yes, for those of you that are as enchanted with science fiction as I am, my post title is from an episode of the 60s classic 3rd season of Star Trek.
The enchanting utopia of the TV series back in the sixties had an almost Taoist flare for looking at the absurd. This particular episode centered around a "bi-colored" humanoid duo that saw each other as oppressed and oppressor because one side of either's face was different than the others.
The Enterprise crew is flabbergasted by the two alien's view of themselves because the earth crew's society had long since given up on the idea of segmentation and flourished on the principles of united individuality. Their questions are very whimsical and almost childlike as they try to understand their guests and their anger/hatred towards one another.
For it's time, this television show was able to put a relatively new twist on an age old problem that people couldn't bring themselves to comment or bring out into the open during the turbulent 1960s- racism.
Sadly, much hasn't changed.
The utopian world of Star Trek is a far cry from the semantic rich, politically polluted correct that we have spawned since the TV series first aired.
Though it still exists, the sad part of it all is that it's not just the loose cannon nut jobs wearing sheets and pillow cases over their heads with names like Grande Wizard or Rootin' Tootin' Potentate, it's the equally bigoted Ebony members of our society.
"Hate is as hate does" in a stupid Forest Gump way.
We have people who hate an entire segment [or segments] of our world because of a particular skin color, value judgment, religion or ethnic background- for what? Superiority? I doubt that- seeing as to tear someone down, you have to be pretty low in the self esteem category yourself...
The absolute inane thing I can think of is the bolstered belief that because of a pigment in their skin or an attribute about their culture- there are people out there that celebrate or perpetuate their ideology with praise and cloister.
Let me take you down my common sense path for a moment in the hopes you'll have a refreshed look at the absurd notion of "Fill-in-the-Blank" Power... I have a certain flare for Taoist philosophy, so here's a treat for you-
When did you last change your skin color?
If "being gay" is a genetic propensity, why do you celebrate what you had no choice in?
If you allow nothing to "bind" you, why do you hold another person for what-ever reason in such contempt?
If you hate oppression upon yourself, what truth do you carry that allows your repression of another?
What were you thinking before you were born? At what point did you decide your entrance into this world, pick your nation of origin and decide on a parentage or family that had the religious order to which you'd be inspired?
To answer those questions with any real candor or idealistically rich believability, is impossible.
The answer to all of the above is : "You didn't".
Anything "more" is incredibly "less".
I've read the smarminess of both scholars and internet writers alike and their common denominator in the Star Trek "Battlefield" episode is that it was "too simple", "too in your face", or [my favorite] "smacks you over the head with it's intimations".
You know what? By today's [and most any other point in generational history] standards- perhaps it is... But tell me this:
"IF it's so pounded into your skull the obvious truths of racism [or any other bigoted 'ism' for that matter] how come we don't have that clue some 40 [almost] years later, and put it to practice?"
Maybe it's time to have that trip back behind the woodshed for a sound "lesson administration" to the politically correct, the agitators, the rebel rousers and the malcontents.
I continue to be: Russ
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