The Ignorance of Bigotry

(Revised and Corrected 09/25/2011)
Usually, all my blog entries are first time originals. However, as it often does, history has a habit of repeating itself.  Recently, at the exercises in hog wash the Republicans call debates, several occurrences have again demonstrated just how stupid some segments of humanity can be, and just how low they can sink.  These two references came not from the debaters, but from the audience.  I am referring specifically to the audience clapping when the fact that Texas has had hundreds of  state sanction executions was mentioned, and to the "Yeah's" that were heard from the audience when one of the debate moderators asked if a 30 year old man, with no health insurance, and in a life or death situation, should be allowed to die.  In the case of the latter, it should be noted that not one of the debaters chastised the audience for their actions.

Ignorance, stupidity and bigotry are old friends, and I wrote an article on one of my websites (http://www.kenkreps.com/) about that very subject some three years ago.  I am going to take the liberty of re-introducing that article in this blog entry, because since I wrote the article, little has changed, and in some ways the situation has become worse.  I will apologize in advance for it's length, but there was much to say and to digest about the subject. Of course, when I first wrote the article the Tea Party was not the uninformed nuisance it is now.  Had it been, it would have been mentioned prominently,

Here now is.........

The Ignorance Of Bigotry
By Ken Kreps
© 2008

Most writers believe approaching a single subject in an article or essay is usually best. They think you should define your case, make your point, end the article and move on. I usually agree, but not today, as I want to discuss two subjects that, while they may not seem related, I believe are, at least in the way they illustrate the overall decline of our country. I say this with absolutely no glee, as I love our country and am saddened by what is happening to it.
 
The first topic I want to bring to your attention is the dumbing down of our nation, or perhaps the better term would be the numbing down of our country.
 
For starters, our television programming has been invaded by something called reality TV, which is in itself a misnomer, as there is nothing real about it at all. We are inundated by hordes of vocalists (and their surly judges), phony races across the world, houses being rebuilt before our very eyes, dancers pulled from other occupations, and displaying various degrees of talent (I for one, was thrilled to see Cliff from Cheers dancing his little heart out), a new show with phony pirates, and people trying to win a prize by "surviving" on some desert isle. While there are a few good dramas left on television that both entertain and cause you to think (such as Criminal Minds, or the CBS show, Jericho, which was cancelled and then brought back to the fall schedule due to an unprecedented and massive ground roots campaign by fans of the show), and a few others that are just a real hoot to watch (such as Boston Legal), much of the programming from which we have to choose is mindless drivel, all presented to us under the umbrella name of "Reality TV". The "Survivor" series supposedly pits one team against another, alone on some remote isle. Of course they are not alone, but instead surrounded by large film crews, network and support people, all there to film it all for later broadcast. I'm not saying the whole thing is staged, but it certainly is not two lonely teams battling each other while stranded in the middle of the wilderness.
 
Reality TV exists because (1) it's inexpensive to produce (compared with dramas), and (2) it is popular, especially with the buying age public that advertisers so dearly love. The fact that it's popular is cause for concern. There is no mental challenge in watching reality shows; there is no reason to think. You need only to sit on the couch or your favorite chair and gaze at a television screen as time passes you by. Reality TV is indeed the land where the individual thinking process goes to die. Yet sadly, it's what many people in this country accept as entertainment, even as it dulls their minds.

If you think a number of minds in this country aren't dull, here's a case in point of an occurrence I'm sure many of you have experienced. You walk into a fast food restaurant and after placing your order, your total bill is….oh, let's say it's $7.53. You hand the counter person ten dollars and then, as they are entering the amount you gave them into the register, you think to hand them three pennies, so as to not get any pennies back in your change. Nine times out of ten the counter person looks at you with a blank stare that says, "duhhhh", and they have no idea how to calculate the extra three cents you handed them into the amount of change you have coming to you. They have always relied on their register to tell them what to do. They don't think, they react, and now you have introduced something into their process of making change, which they don't know how to handle. They are unable to reason it through, as they are unaccustomed to having to think on their feet.
 
Then, of course, there is the case of the missing "G", as to many Americans the letter G seems to have totally disappeared from their vocabulary. Instead of saying doing, they say doin', instead of getting, it's gettin'. It's not that most people don't know better, as they do. It's caused mainly by out and out laziness, as well as unwillingness to attempt to speak even passable, correct English. Many think it really doesn't matter, but it does. Once, for any reason, they step out of their circle of similar friends, they will be judged by how they speak, as there are still plenty of people in the United States who feel the way you speak says something about who you are. This may not be a fair way to judge people, but it is often the way it's done. To some, repeatedly hearing someone say goin', gettin', and sleepin' doesn't fill them with a sense that they are hearing an intelligent person. Mind you I didn't say educated, I said intelligent.
 
Because of mindless TV, electronic machines that do the thinking for us, hours spent looking for entertainment on the Internet, eagerly following the latest sleaze from Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and others, blasting tunes into our ears from Ipods, playing electronic games to excess, many Americans have no intellectual curiosity which causes them to want to understand how something works outside their own environment, or why something exists. Some do, of course (and thank God for them), but far too many do not. It is little wonder that on the Jay Leno segment called, "Jaywalking", several people didn't know what state Chicago was in, while others thought Al Gore was the first man to walk on the moon. In keeping with that, in a recent survey, one out of five surveyed believed the sun revolved around the earth.
 
One of the greatest intellectual minds of the twentieth century, Carl Sagan, had a wonderful catch phrase he called "The Joy Of Knowing", which means simply taking the time to study and understand something for the pure joy of knowing how, why, where or when.

Throw rap music (there are two words that don't belong together, if ever there were any) into the mix with its women bashing, in your face style, performed by people of marginal talent, who profess to all the world how cool it is to be a gangster (or is it gangsta'), and you have one more plank in the system that is producing the uncomprehending masses which plague this country. While rap may have social relevance to some, it sure as hell isn't music, and those who record it have in no way earned the right to be called artists. Come on. People, it's chanting pure and simple. It's bad rhymes passed off as art. When it comes to rap, the emperor truly has no clothes.
 
The brain drain in this country is tremendous, and while there is truth in what some say about it being the fault of our education system, it's also the result of an individuals choice to float through life in our cocoon like environment with little effort made towards thinking, or investigation. We often marvel at the brainpower of people from Asian countries. Yes, they do seem intelligent and mentally nimble and they are. They're that way, not because they have superior brainpower, but because they have superior intellectual curiosity, as well as superior educations.
 
Millions of Americans are simply apathetic to facts or reason. They don't investigate or research, and often form opinions based on trivialities. Or worse, they form no opinion at all.
 
It's these people who mainly comprise the second group on which I now wish to focus. That would be the group that takes no interest and feels no compassion about the plight of others. Some in this group are out and out racists, many just don't care, and still others are ignorant as to what the real issues are.

This country has millions of illegal immigrants. Yes, there are some unsavory types among them, but most are hard working men and women, wanting only a better life for their families and for themselves than they could have in their native country. But to hear the ranting of some people, all illegal immigrants are drug-using criminals who are only here to free-load off the welfare and medical systems, rob, pillage, and plunder. My many concerns about our president non withstanding, even a broken clock is right twice a day, and I believe many members of congress and George Bush are right with their new approach to immigration, an approach that gives these immigrants a more clearly defined path to citizenship. While far from being a perfect piece of legislation, it is a major step in the right direction. Even though I am unaccustomed to agreeing with the president (Editors Note: This article was written when Gorge W. Bush was still president), he was correct when he said, "It's the right thing to do."  Some say, "They don't speak our language" when, as previously pointed out, some of our own citizens don't speak "our language" all that well, themselves. You hear people say,"They have strange customs," or "They're just not like us." They forget, when our nation was formed everyone had strange customs, and one nationality was for from being like another. Our country was formed by many cultures, and many languages, all contributing something good (and yes, sometimes something bad) to create the most diverse country in the world. I am half German and half English, and most of us can trace our ancestry back to another country. Only American Indians are real Americans, while the rest of us are imports. How quickly some of us forget.
 
One Neanderthal Republican senator called the new, immigration proposal "a free get out of jail card." With that remark, he neatly illustrated the feelings of many (see next paragraph) that illegal immigrants are all akin to criminals. He's wrong, of course, but it's still sad to hear an elected official openly display his prejudice and ignorance in public, as he did. To regard any human being that way because of their nationality, color, sexual preference, beliefs, how they got to this country (without understanding why), or their religion (or lack of same) is simply wrong. Dead wrong! Sadly, the new immigration bill may be scuttled, as many Republicans seem more hell-bent on building fences, then they do in building understanding.
 
I have an old college friend who I am still in contact with by e-mail. This man is an intelligent college graduate who was both a brilliant and gifted musician when I first met him in college. I went to college on a music scholarship, and all the scholarship students had some degree of talent or we wouldn't have been granted a scholarship. This man, however, was clearly head and shoulders above all the rest of us in talent and proficiency on his instrument.
 
He now sends me e-mails with attachments, some of which are vile enough to have come straight from the KKK's headquarters. They attack in the basest of language, illegal (oh my, how they do love that word, illegal) immigrants (especially those from Mexico), Muslims, with claims that all the many millions of Muslims in the world are evil and want to destroy us, and other tirades which attack most groups who do not conform to the white, Christian, conservative, rigid definitions, which many on the right cling to like a life preserver in a churning sea.
 
This man, who I looked up to so much in college, is educated, but I'm afraid his intellectual curiosity, and the compassion that often accompanies it, may have passed him by. He lives in Texas, which could be part of the reason for his bigotry, as Texas isn't the most enlightened place on earth. As a native born Texan, I have not only the right to say that, but I have experiences (from having lived there) to back up that statement. I have no doubt my old college friend knows exactly where Chicago is, but he seems not to understand the terrible plight of the many unfortunates in the world. Mind you, there is a great deal to like about this person and I still hold him in high regard, as we go too far back to feel otherwise. I must admit, however, to not understanding what motivates him to express (and, I have no doubt, believe) such opinions.
 
It is a sad fact that many people in this country (both educated and uneducated) need someone to look down upon, and who better a target for their disdain than illegal immigrants and/or Muslims. The "I'm better than them," syndrome is alive and well in many parts of our nation. Those of us who live in this country are certainly more fortunate than so many of the world's population, but in no way does that make us superior to anyone.
 
At the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, we keep prisoners without charges for an indefinite period of time. Most of these men have no access to lawyers. Lest you think I'm soft on terrorists, think again. Terror suspects should be tried and if convicted, sentenced to long prison terms or death, depending on the severity of their crime. They should not be held indefinitely without formal charges levied against them. They also should not be tortured or worse, sent to foreign countries to be tortured. What happened to our moral compass that many of our citizens think illegal confinement and torture are now OK? Yet, you hear people say, "They're terrorists, so anything goes." Trouble is, some of them aren't terrorists at all, and even our own government has said as much when they are released without charges and sent home to try to put their life back together. Our "one size fits all" treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo is no more than a more severe rehashing of the Joe McCarthy era where factions of our country said, "Even though I have no real proof....you are a Communist because I said you are one." Except today, it's "You are a terrorist because I say you are one."
 
I'm sure many of the detainees at Guantanamo are guilty of a terrorist act, or aiding those who were. Charges should be filed against these individuals and trials should commence. Holding trials for suspects, presenting evidence, having the accused represented by counsel, punishing the guilty, and setting the innocent free is one of the cornerstones on which our country was built. By not doing so we are acting a great deal like the totalitarian nations we profess to detest. We are lowering our moral standards in order to fight people who have low moral standards. Go figure. The real terrorists want to kill as many of us as they can, of that I have no doubt, but they also want to change our way of life. Once we leave the high road, employ the same vile tactics as the terrorists, and lower our standards of conduct as a nation, to a degree the terrorists have succeeded. They have changed our way of life. They have made us a little more like them. Due process and honesty are what has separated this country from the rest for over 200 years. Without it we become just another country out of many. Did we learn nothing from the wrongful internment of Japanese American citizens during World War II?
 
Finally, there is another group in this country that is vilified on a daily basis. Actually, there are many such groups, but this one seems to get some of the most vile comments from our citizens. The homeless in this country are looked upon as some sort of pond scum. Many say the homeless want to be homeless (an absolutely absurd remark), or they only became that way due to laziness and a refusal to work. When we see one coming towards us on the street, we look the other way and avoid them as much as possible. We treat them as if they weren't there. Are there homeless who are lazy bums, or out and out crooks? Of course there are, but to paint the entire group with a broad brush of bigotry is not accurate or fair, certainly not Christian, and identifies our nation as uncaring to the rest of the world. How a nation treats it's own poor and disadvantaged says much about the character and soul of that nation. Most cities deal with the homeless problem by moving them from time to time out of the line of sight of most residents and tourists. God forbid someone would see that "our" city actually has homeless people in it. Some faith-based organizations try to help the homeless and for that I am grateful. I was never very big on asking faith-based groups to become involved in charity work, as some of these groups like to mentally hit anyone they help over the head with the bible, first. It's not religion these folks need, but instead, food, shelter, medical care, and a sense that someone cares about them as human beings. Once they are on their feet, if you want to try to "save their souls" that's your business, but help them first, preach to them second. To their credit, some faith-based organizations do exactly that. As I said, I am grateful to these groups, but saddened that our own government doesn't take some of the billions from Bush's folly (the war in Iraq….WAKE UP Democrats, that's why we elected you!) and use it to offer significant help to the homeless and low-income people in our nation.
 
Of course I haven't really touched on the prejudice which blacks, gays, women, the working poor, the elderly, and other minority groups still face daily. Nor have I mentioned the recent loss of civil rights we have all suffered due to certain unconstitutional sections of the Patriot Act. But then, if I explored each of those topics in detail I would be writing a book, and not an article.
 
As long as we have non-thinkers in large numbers in this country, we will have bigots who show intolerance towards those who do not conform to their narrow, inflexible standards, for it is ignorance that fuels the fires of prejudice. Ignorance and a lack of education are not always in lock step with each other, as educated people can be ignorant and uneducated people can be enlightened. Basic education in some form, is offered to nearly everyone in this country. Thinking and understanding takes a little more individual work. A non-thinker, who cannot or will not reason things through, is a bigot waiting to happen.
 
If each of us can influence just one person to think, to be curious, to be willing to wade through the hype to find the facts, to refuse to accept the old tired excuse, "That's the way we've always done it," we can help make a difference. Indifference, bigotry, and prejudice can be eradicated to a great degree, but it will take years, and it will take hard work. When you see or hear prejudice, expose it for the cancer it is. Let people know it is not acceptable and you will not tolerate it. That, and encouraging your children, family members, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances to think and reason, can some day bring this country back to the ideals on which it was founded. Hate and ignorance are slippery slopes, while reason and understanding are always the best building blocks to insure a solid foundation for our nation.

THINK AND CARE!