If

My favorite real poem of all time is If by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling, the British author of such classics as Kim and Jungle Book, was also a poet. Though you can easily criticize Kipling these days by applying modern mores to him, in the usual way, he was a man of his times. He was living in America when he wrote If, a short stoic set of instructions made for boys (yes, horrors, not boys and girls – though it could just as easily apply to girls). And though I’ve read that Kipling did not live up to his own high falutin’ philosophy, I highly recommend If to everyone. It is something to aspire to, although very hard to live up to, and I fail at some aspect or another of it daily. But, I’ve written my own If and merely stolen the title, which I will apologize for if we end up in the same afterlife neighborhood. This If is about the modern insanity over racism. And, given that my own poetic instincts immediately become paralyzed after “Rose are red, violets are blue,” I also must abstain from any attempt at lyricism. Nevertheless –

If

If believing that saying “All Lives Matter” matters;

If believing that intent matters too;

If believing that we will prevail by all by identifying as Americans, and fail if we balkanize or separate into separate nations;

If believing that we should judge one another by the “content of our characters” and not “the color of our skin”;

If believing that that our children are being harmed by being taught some are minorities who need extra help by virtue of their skin color and others are privileged by virtue of theirs;

If believing that having any color skin does not make you responsible for things that other people with relatively the same color skin did to people with different skin colors;

If believing that that there is no difference between saying that “black lives matter” than “white lives matter”;  

If believing that sports should and does unify people in large and should not be made a vehicle for political ideology;

If believing “sticks and stones shall break my bones, but names shall never hurt me,” is wise;

If believing that people should not lose their jobs or be punished for having different political or social beliefs;

If believing that demonizing a politician as racist because they have different beliefs which have nothing to do with race is wrong;

If believing that calling someone racist who isn’t, to attain some perceived or real advantage, is no better then calling them a racial slur;

If believing that the death of hundreds of people, perhaps more, mostly self-identified minorities, including little children, as a result of the mayhem set off by “black lives matter” riots after George Floyd’s death, was far worse than his lone death, however horrible that was.

If believing that all those deaths are proof that the one thing the leaders of “black lives matter” movement don’t care about is “black” lives;

If believing that those people of goodwill who believe in the "black lives matter" movement should condemn the violence and death that it has caused, and cease to protest until it stops, or have no credibility that they are peaceful;

If believing that excusing bad behavior because someone identifies as a minority is harmful to everyone, including people who are minorities;

If believing that the hundreds or thousands of deaths from “black on black” homicide, is not only a far greater problem for “blacks” than the relative handful of wrongful black deaths from police officers of any skin color;

If believing that the best friends of any law-abiding minorities are the police and that most minorities know it;

If believing that some of our school systems have not only begun long ago to proselytize our children, to make them increasingly racist, to accept multiple “blood libels” as true and to destroy the greatest hope poor people, whether minorities or otherwise have – capitalism;

If believing that there is a national delusion of “systemic racism” and widespread “white supremacy” foisted upon us largely by our media and the entertainment industry in creating and increasing racial and ethnic division and disharmony;

If believing the political and physical assault on cops in many cities in this country is not only to all our detriment, but especially to the poor and minorities;

If believing that those who call for defunding or doing away with cops are mostly gang members, criminals or those who seek nihilism or anarchy;

If believing that “black lives matter” and Antifa is promoted by “whites” as well as “blacks” and that their threats and violence make them the spearhead of neo-fascism in our country;

If believing that the fascistic nature of the movement is demonstrated as already begun by the intimidation of millions of Americans, particularly those who work in or for education, government, entertainment, technology or large corporations from speaking their minds due to reflexive firings and suspensions;

If believing that co-employees who falsely state that they “don’t feel safe” because another employee has an opinion they don’t like are American “quislings” and Nazi collaborators;  

If believing that “Heil Hitlerization” of the “black lives matter” slogan found all over stores and the web is a far larger problem for all Americans than the largely imagined “white supremacy”;

If believing that otherwise good ideas for holidays are spoiled by having them rammed down our throats and are deserving of our opprobrium and non-participation;

If believing that countries without borders are not countries, nor deserving of being called so;

If believing that those who unlawfully tear down statues and destroy public memorials to those who were racist in past days, including some of whom were heroes and saviors of minorities like Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, are no different than the vandals of old, the Nazis who sought to destroy Jewish culture, the Taliban who destroyed the statues of the Buddha, or any modern or historical iconoclast;

If believing that the idea that many “white supremacists” exist in America is a delusion and a heinous hoax when even watchdog groups have recently numbered them in the few thousands;

If believing that a country that twice elected Barack Obama president, has had Marshall and Thomas and other minorities on our highest courts, has innumerable enforced federal and state anti-discrimination laws, some which are grossly unfair to “whites” and some minorities, and a country which financially enriches and actually hero-worships many “blacks,” is not systemically racist;

If believing that the idea of reparations is not only impossible to work with even the slightest degree of fairness or sanity, but that will further entrench what little racism that is left and grossly enflame it, and is an insult to more than anyone else – to “blacks.”   

If believing that statements and policies such as “silence is violence” and every variation of it are themselves just an excuse for the speakers to be violent as if they were acting in self-defense;

If thinking that one of the biggest problems the “black” community has in America, is following the worst leaders imaginable and rejecting those who could really help them, and that large numbers of this generation have now been lost to a movement that teaches them that self-victimization, a rejection of history and violence or social unrest will bring them success, rather than hard work and education;

If believing that Barack Obama was correct in repeatedly saying even a few years after the commencement of the black lives matter movement statements such as this – and to applause from largely “black” audiences:

"I am not saying gaps do not persist. Obviously, they do. Racism persists. Inequality persists. Don’t worry -- I’m going to get to that. But I wanted to start, Class of 2016, by opening your eyes to the moment that you are in. If you had to choose one moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn’t know ahead of time who you were going to be -- what nationality, what gender, what race, whether you’d be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you'd be born into -- you wouldn’t choose 100 years ago. You wouldn’t choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You’d choose right now. If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, “young, gifted, and black” in America, you would choose right now.”

If, having spent a large part of my adult life studying the millennia-long and never-ending struggle for freedom from the Sumerians and Egyptians on, including Americans of African descent and other minorities, and literally reading every speech, book and article Martin Luther King, Jr. has written or spoken, I’ve come to believe that the black lives matter movement is figuratively assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr. all over again, in turning on its head his dream that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" and insisting, rather, that only skin color matters;

If then - my believing some or all of these things – makes you define me as a racist – then racist has become a thing to be proud of, because it means that you have merely bought into a national delusion which labels racism as anti-racism and anti-racism as racism.

Courage, foes of actual racism! It seems an American custom to fight back only when all seems lost – we’d rather go to work, raise our kids and watch television with blinders on – But, if we are to prevail, then we must reject the neo-fascistic end of actual progress, democracy and freedom in America and make some sacrifices. At the very least, speak your minds.

And vote for the imperfect and knuckleheaded, rather than open the gates of doom!