Injustice – Page 2 – Blind Injustice

October 10, 2017October 9, 2017

Why I Blogged Today, Even Though Columbus Day was Yesterday

Anyone who has followed my blog over the last several months would’ve noticed that I don’t blog on weeks of federal holidays. It was a practice I started with Independence Day and Labor Day, and I will continue this habit with Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day in the next few weeks.

But this practice will not extend to Columbus Day. Not this year, and probably not ever.

The reason is that, quite honestly, this blog is supposed to expose injustices instead of celebrate them. As a result, I felt that not posting for the week of Columbus Day would be a de facto celebration of Columbus and a number of injustices related to him and the way he is celebrated.

I am not going to go into all of the injustices related to Columbus, but here are a few:

When Columbus got involved in “America” (which wasn’t actually America but places in the Caribbean like Haiti), he and his people enslaved many, treated many people brutally, and saw many people die as a result of mistreatment from him and those who helped him. It’s fair to say that people in the West Indies weren’t exactly flourishing while he was the governor there.
Columbus and his entourage claimed the land for themselves, even though other people were on the territory many years before they “discovered” it. This sort of claiming of land is not worth celebrating.
The way Columbus treated indigenous people in America started a pattern of how Europeans often brutally treated indigenous people in the New World. In other words, this pattern of mass enslavement and brutality against indigenous people continued for many years after Columbus died. Basically, Columbus was a trendsetter in all the wrong ways. This is also nothing to be celebrated.
Brutality aside, he was not the first person to discover America, because that was actually done many centuries before Columbus went on his voyage. For that matter, he was not even the first European to discover America, as there is strong evidence of a Viking presence in Newfoundland. Actually, Columbus never even landed in mainland North America, in spite of the continuously popular myth of his “discovering” America. So Columbus Day is a holiday that is built on all sorts of false premises about what he “discovered.” As a result, even the way he is celebrated is, in a way, unjust.

I am not a scholar on Christopher Columbus, so people can probably find even more reasons, on both sides of this argument, about why he should or should not be celebrated. But these are a few of the big reasons why I will not celebrate him by having an “off week” on this blog.

Instead, I hope to use the week of Columbus Day in future years to do as I’ve always tried to do here: discuss injustices which many of us may be blind to or blindly commit.

September 19, 2017September 19, 2017

Some Words about the End of DACA

I was heartbroken when I found out about the White House’s recent decision on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). To see children and adults alike, none of whom committed crimes, be in a state of legal limbo because they tagged along with parents who crossed the border into the United States illegally or overstayed visas and remained illegally, is just sickening. It was so sickening that, for awhile, I didn’t know what to say or do other than lament.

In some ways, I still don’t know what to say. But there are a few things that I think are appropriate to share with a blog whose theme is injustices that we may be blind to, or blindly commit.

The first thing is this: unless we seriously think about how to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” we run the risk of blindly committing injustices. Look, for example, at the actions of the people who were behind this: President Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and right-wing Republicans who support people like Trump and Sessions. They would not want others to put them in a position of legal limbo. They wouldn’t want to be in a position where they are deported from the country. They wouldn’t like to be put into danger by others because of what their parents did, good or bad. Yet, what I described is the position they’re putting the DACA kids into; as a result, they seemed not to think about “doing onto others as you would have them do unto you.” Unless we think about that exact phrase, we run the risk of being unjust to others.

The second thing is that we need to be conscious of how law (both civil and natural) is used to justify injustice. Whether it be ending DACA on the basis of “law,” allowing for Jim Crow Laws on the basis of how “law” allows for “separate but equal,” or arguing for female inferiority on the basis of “natural law,” there are examples of law being used to justify injustice throughout the history of the United States. I could probably dedicate a whole blog post to the topic of how law is used to justify injustice, but for now, I think the issue should be vigorously discussed in the context of DACA—especially since “law” was used by the Trump White House to justify the injustice of ending DACA (unless Congress passes something), and especially since “law” is practically given as much respect as the Bible among believing Christians.

The final thing is that we need to be aware of how these DACA kids are really not that different from the rest of us. There are some outstanding DACA people that supporters of DACA want to put a spotlight on, and some not-so-outstanding DACA people that opponents of DACA want to put a spotlight on, but the heartbreaking thing is that at the end of the day, they are in many ways not that different from the rest of us. The only difference is the circumstances with which we all ended up in this country—DACA people had parents who took them across the border and ended up not having documentation, while the rest of us in the United States were either born here or ended up here through other circumstances. Remembering that DACA people are not that different from us will hopefully bring some humanity to the current conversations.

Ultimately, we are all humans. We are not that different. And it’s extremely heartbreaking to see what’s happening to DACA people, precisely because they are not that different from the rest of us yet will have it much worse than the rest of us.

Author’s Note: Even though there were rumors of agreement between President Trump and Democrats, I feel that this post is relevant until DACA gets passed through the House and Senate, and gets signed by Trump.

IMAG0548 — When I was at the protest over the end of DACA in Manhattan, I saw a little girl with a sign saying, “Don’t separate my family.” My heart broke when I saw the sign and the little girl with the sign.

August 15, 2017August 13, 2017

Reflecting on the Events in Charlottesville

As my readers know, Blind Injustice is a blog where I talk about injustices that some of us may be blind to or blindly commit. I have that focus because I feel that there are many forms of injustice that we are complacent to or downright commit without realizing.

However, given the events of the past few days, I think it’s important to somewhat divert from the focus of the blog and talk about a very visible and hateful incident (or set of incidents) of injustice. Namely, the events in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The events in Charlottesville demonstrate that there are still injustices which are very painful, overt, and visible to everyone except those committing the injustices and their supporters. Among those injustices on display were bigotry, white supremacy, and calls for ethnic cleansing.

While this blog hopefully exposes some of us to a number of blind injustices, I hope that we also don’t ignore very visible forms of injustice such as what was shown by white nationalists in Charlottesville. To the contrary, all of us must call out the white supremacist terrorism of last weekend for what it was, and denounce it for what it was.

June 27, 2017July 1, 2017

The Forgotten Injustice of the American National Anthem

On Independence Day next Tuesday, many Americans will bring out American flags, talk with pride about the nation’s heritage, and proudly belch out the American national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

I was especially proud to sing our national anthem in the years after 9/11, when I was too young to understand the full meaning of the song, but also old enough to realize that the song was to many people a symbol of defiance towards terrorists who tried to destroy the nation’s identity. But these days, I have trouble singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at all, let alone singing it in public.

Before people call me unpatriotic, just as many called NFL Quarterback Colin Kaepernick unpatriotic for his refusal to stand during the American national anthem, please hear me out. I too am a believer in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” even if those ideals did not extend towards African Americans, Native Americans, women, immigrants, people in the LGBTQ+ community, and others for many decades after that phrase was first used. But the fact is that, if the United States of America wants to carry out a universal, inclusive, and just vision of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” our current national anthem is not a representation of such a vision.

In making this claim, I point to an oft-forgotten part of “The Star-Spangled Banner”—the third verse:

“And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

“No refuge could save the hireling and slave…from the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave.”

These two lines from the third verse make it sound like the author, Francis Scott Key, was celebrating the death of African American slaves.

To add historical context to the verse, African American slaves who fought for the British were offered freedom in the War of 1812. Hence, the British served as a “refuge” for slaves, since they seemed to offer slaves what they wanted—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

However, slaves fighting for the British did not give Francis Scott Key what he wanted, which was the preservation of the United States of America. Once the British-allied slaves got killed, on the other hand, the United States stood a greater chance of having a preserved country.

Between the lyrics and the historical context of the lyrics, it certainly seems like this portion of the song celebrates the death of slaves trying to free themselves from slavery. Since it celebrates enslaved death instead of freedom and life, the American national anthem is not a song that celebrates an inclusive, universal, and just version of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Many of us forget about the injustice of the song (the third verse in particular) because we only sing the first verse. However, we should not let ourselves forget about any part of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” This song refused to extend the vision of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” towards a whole group of people (slaves, particularly slaves fighting for the British), and everyone who sings this song should be mindful of that fact.