Herd Poisoning...

Wow... we talked about a lot of really heavy subjects today in class. It's something I was thinking about while at the library not studying Chemistry... this country was built on a lot of people's pain. It was built on alienation and control. Even the disconsolate and destitute were pitted against each other, often to the benefit of the more affluent members of society.

There was something that the book mentioned... "blacks learned to consider 'white trash' their natural enemies" and "When there were outbreaks of night riding or lynching, poor whites were the perpetrators."

Meanwhile the rich white plantation owners shafted them both- by not hiring the poor whites (keeping them unemployed) and keeping the black sharecroppers in more or less slave conditions. The sad thing is, if the poor whites had fought (through their unhindered voting rights) to protect the civil rights of the black sharecroppers- both groups may have come off a lot better.

Of course, this is an oversimplified view of an incredibly complex subject.

There is also to consider human psychology... in class, the question came up- why do people fear and try to control groups different from themselves?

I think that PART of it, is that we all desire so badly to be part of a group... maybe it will be easier to explain this using the microcosm of high school and its cliques- if you notice, each group has it's hierarchy- there's always some cheerleader at the bottom of the pyramid. If she can keep the rest of her clique targeting some other group... say, the "anime fangirls" then the upper hierarchy of her own group won't turn against her. Also, though she may not be the "Queen Bee" she has the ego boost of NOT being one of THEM.

Similarly, the poor backcountry whites might be rednecks and WHITE TRASH, but at least they're not BLACK.

Besides, that way it's not their fault... it's the blacks, or the Jews, or whatever else other group you want to blame, and a million other excuses that have no excuse for why people treat each other so horribly.

People treated each other atrociously back then, and we still do today. It's something we all have to struggle with. And as was brought up in class, it isn't necessarily racism- it can be something as simple as judging a person based on their clothing or mannerisms... anything that makes us actively step outside of our safety zone can cause some sort of prejudice- and it's different from seeing it through the media... For instance, I can watch Discovery Channel shows full of tribal New Guineans wearing nothing but penis cones and it doesn't perturb me. If a guy wearing nothing but a penis cone sat next to me on the bus... well, it might be a different story.

Well I've rambled long enough... (my, that's a horrible conclusion- I'm glad this isn't being graded as an English paper...) anyway, that's all for now.