The ambers (sic) of hatred are hardly the problem, but then we may be speaking traffic lights and I just took the wrong lane...
The American "problem" isn't really the American problem alone. Most of Europe shares it, and it exists as pay-back time for the sins of a few centuries ago.
We all have to accept that, not blame those stuck unwillingly (I think they guessed those chains were not to stop them falling overboard) into cheap tourist-class accommodation on primitive sailing ships; as far as my limited research goes, it was mainly a black-selling-black situation in Africa with plenty of European buyers lining up with transport. Seems like not a lot has changed today, other than instead of galleons we are using inflatable rafts supplied at high cost to the travellers themselves; ironic, no? Their final destination today is just as watery, or at best, will involve a life as grim. Maybe not on a cotton farm, but is the underbelly of a bridge more comfortable, less vulnerable to the elements and the people of the night than a farm shack? Even than one back in today's Africa?
Is there any thought within US black culture about those blacks back in Africa who rounded them up to sell? In the past as today? Do there exist revenge movements today towards those guys? Are there Pakistani groups on the Internet ready to jihad against the fellow mid-eastern countries who treat those travelling Pakistani citizens as slaves to build palaces to football or simply labour as maids-without-rights?
Race is one mother of a topic, and were we all able to hold our cool, it would be fascinating to understand how different colours really think and feel about their own situation and its relationship to that of others. I am certain it isn't as simple as black/white at all. From my mid-youth in India I do recall problems associated with the caste system there, and how it struck me that it was just accepted as the way things were and would remain. Seventy years after the Brits retired from that particular fray, I see on tv the Indian head honcho still claiming to be desirous of closing that caste situation down... really? How?
And colour is simply one manifestation of the problem, the divide and hatred. European whites can be just as detested by dumb Brits incapable of seeing the wood of their own making for the trees put out there by politicians. That some Brits prefer to live off 'benefits' than do low-paid labour opens the door to those Europeans willing to do that work. And that doesn't just mean white Brits: I've seen tv snippets of brown Asian Brits as well as black Brits chanting the chants; the irony appears totally lost to them too.
Rob
