Thursday, September 19, 2013

White Flight From Planet Marred by Diversity of Passenger List

by Ron Powell

White flight is a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions.
Now the term may well be applied to a significant number of white people who expressed the desire to leave the big blue marble and take a one-way trip to the angry red planet....
The Mars One venture says more than 200,000 people registered their interest in taking a one-way trip to the Red Planet, but only a fraction of those are officially in the running for the trip.
To be precise, 2,782 people have paid their registration fee and submitted public videos in which they make their case for going to Mars in 2023 — with no guarantee that they'll ever come back.
Mars One plays off the fact that it's far easier logistically to send astronauts on a one-way trip to Mars than to make a round trip. The concept of the 55,000,000 km trip, which could take up to 300 days, has been compared to the way Europeans settled the Americas centuries ago: The first settlers didn't expect to come back home, but instead created a new home in the New World.
In a news release announcing the end of the first five-month recruitment..., Mars One said 202,586 people registered their interest in the trip. Registrations came from more than 140 countries, with Americans making up the biggest contingent (24 percent). The other countries in the top eight included India (10 percent), China (6 percent), Brazil (5 percent) and Great Britain, Canada, Russia and Mexico (each representing 4 percent).
The passenger list for the first flight to Mars has the potential of being racially diverse to the point of placing white passengers in a numerical minority.  A disappointment for those who may well have signed up to get away from people of color...
A word of advice to those who are looking to 'escape' from the planet they helped to fuck up environmentally and socially:
Be careful of what you wish for, you could find yourself longing for the good old days of global warming and a black president...

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

White Privilege and The Silent Majority

by Ron Powell
 
 The notion or concept of the "silent majority" was devised in order to provide the average white person a way to identify with the vast majority of white people who weren't actively and openly engaged in the protests and civil disobedience that occurred during the Civil Rights Movement...The idea being, that if you were white and not actively involved in the protests, then you were assumed to be against the protesters and marchers and for "law and order".
 
Hence, remaining silent meant that people could assume you were for maintaining the status quo and against any kind of change that might result in greater exercise of freedom on the part of black people.
 
As a result, people who are passively and quietly sympathetic to the notion of "liberty and justice for all" must have the courage to come out and declare themselves and in so doing risk being shunned or ostracized by family, friends, and neighbors and possibly even  penalized by employers...
 
Unwitting, unconscious, sub-conscious racists must acknowledge that racism is a predominant and determining factor in our society and that they have benefitted from this fact of American life.... 
 

Silent non-racists  must be willing to openly engage people who express themselves in ways that are clear indications of their racist mind set and attitudes and must become anti-racism activists...

The current rash of anti-black application of the law is steeped in a long-standing tradition and history in this country. What's 'new' is the seemingly clever ways racists have hidden their agenda and motives.

White folks are being duped big time by those who have pushed the narrative and dynamic re race and racism in a direction that requires the self-declared 'non-racist' to actively "opt out" of racism rather than simply remaining silent while sitting on the sidelines and wondering what all the 'fuss' is about...

The failure of "good" folks to speak up and speak out will be the undoing of the "progress" that has been made in the last 50/60 years.....

If people who sympathizes with the rhetoric of hatred and violence are not confronted  by people of good will the tragic truth is that they will prevail  and we will have lost the opportunity to turn the page and turn the corner.....

All the progress we have made can be lost in a split second...We have and obligation to protect the progress we have made while at the same time not being complacent...We have come a great distance but we have a great distance yet to go before we can rest......