I have a dream
Out of context: Reply #9
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- drgss0
Blacks in the U.S. were lucky. They were at least recognized as people-- maybe as "defective" people, second or even third-class, and even if they did not have any rights at all, they were at least regarded as human beings.
At the same time, in the epoch of American nation-building, there was another category, which in general operated outside the concept of human beings. These were the Indians, the indigenous people of America before the arrival of "bearers of democratic values". In the minds of americans North America was initially seen as a blank space, equating the indigenous people to inhuman forms of life, as some natural barriers, like bushes of thorns or spikes. The extermination of indians was essential for the existence of the constitution itself as the ideal target of operating with an empty non-populated area.
And in exactly the same manner the contemporary Americans relate to the entire world today --as an empty space which is subject to "democratization", “adjustment” and “civilization”. When George Bush calls russians as "genetically incapable of democracy", it reveals that exact mechanism of racism, and ignoring of the facts which do not fit into the framework of the American idea about the world, which teaches about black people as inferior, and indians who do not relate to the human form.