On July 5, 2011, police officers in Fullerton, California beat a 37-year-old schizophrenic man to death as he cried for his "daddy" repeatedly. He
hadn't committed a crime or done anything at all to provoke the
attack. Yet despite being described as one of the worst police beatings
in US history, none of the officers was charged with the murder of
Kelly Thomas.
This incident is similar to the George
Floyd event that occurred last year, which gained much more publicity
and sparked an aggressive antiracist movement. Since then, it has
become fashionable for politicians and celebrities to accuse each other
of racism over actions that, while obnoxious, actually have nothing to
do with racial discrimination. But Kelly Thomas and the officers who
killed him were all white men — which reveals that racism is not the
real issue here. Police brutality — and the abuse of power in general —
applies to people of all races.
With the recent fixation on
systemic racism, schools have been pressured to teach critical race theory, and this is causing more harm than good. For instance, a course
survey I took after completing a class at California State University,
Fullerton prompted me to rate my instructor's effectiveness in
convicting me of my own privileged status. It struck me as
inappropriate; I attended school to be educated, not
indoctrinated. Besides, I grew up with a single mother who lived
paycheck to paycheck — hardly a privileged demographic. People around
the country with similar sentiments have been fiercely protesting the
teaching of critical race theory in schools. Some states have even
banned it from the curriculum — but the culture war rages on.
Corporations
have jumped on the antiracist bandwagon as well, slapping up statements
on their websites that pander to the movement. One can't even buy ice
cream from Ben & Jerry's without being subjected to a lecture about the evils of systemic racism. It's just absurd.
Now, I understand that racist attitudes
still exist today among a minority, but America simply cannot be
compared to a truly racist society. In fact, my ancestors fled to the
United States from Nazi-occupied Europe in order to escape real systemic
racism. Nazi Germany aggressively boycotted Jewish businesses and
taught schoolchildren that the Aryan race was inherently superior to all
others. That's systemic racism. And while no one has offered
reparations for the Holocaust — as if such a thing could satisfactorily
make up for its atrocities — Jewish culture emphasizes an attitude of
resilience rather than victimization. The best way to honor the memory
of our persecuted ancestors is to learn from the past, vow to never
repeat it, and move on to make the most of our lives.
Racism is an unfortunate part of America's
history, but we have clearly progressed. We have black celebrities,
black sports stars, and we've even had a black president. That would not
be possible in a racist country.
What I fear is that
indoctrinating students with critical race theory will create a
self-fulfilling prophecy. Instilling the belief that life is rigged
against certain people encourages a fixed mindset rather than an
empowering growth mindset. Regardless of any real or perceived
disadvantages we may have, Americans are still more advantaged than most
other people in the world, simply because we live in an industrialized
nation with ample opportunities for education, employment, and access to
resources. Why not see the glass as (at least) half full?
This isn't to imply that human rights
issues no longer exist today. They certainly do, but they don't stem
from white privilege. Slavery has long been abolished. Equal rights
for black Americans and other minority groups have been established
since the civil rights movement. We all rooted for Martin Luther King,
Jr. when we learned about him in elementary school. Let's not go one step forward and
two steps back.
It's time to move on from this issue that is being
strategically used to destabilize the country. We face different issues today. We've invented new forms of segregation, such as
between the left and the right, the masked and the unmasked — and, most
disturbingly, the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Scientists, doctors,
and others who question the safety of experimental injections are
being systematically censored and demonized. People are losing their jobs because they don't feel
comfortable participating in a massive medical experiment. The
parallels to Nazi Germany's human experiments are quite striking, though
this particular iteration of discrimination is colorblind.
Indeed, we have a battle to fight — but let's aim our indignation at the real enemy.
***
This article was originally published in American Thinker.
