In response to the violent police killing of a young man in Memphis, I’ve been thinking about the history of this country. Let’s look at it.
When the Europeans arrived, they decided and acted like they could take what they wanted and in whatever way it was necessary for that to happen. Violence and weapons were employed to make this happen.
They took over with the help of those already here and made it theirs regardless of who was here when they/we arrived. We acted like it belonged to us and we were going to take over. Hence the killing of many Native Americans and forcing them to go and live wherever the conquerors decided they would allow them to live.
The conquerors decided the country and land was theirs and we could do with it whatever we wished. So we have exploited and misused the land and used its resources like it was ours to abuse. As if there was no limit to those resources.
We know today we have abused our land — our gift. This attitude of total entitlement runs through everything in our society, including the police and their training — nationwide — the attitude of “you can have it your way, just apply enough force and you can have what you want.” This attitude is embedded in the culture of the entire nation. How can they/we escape it? I don’t think we can. We must face our history and learn to accept what it is, regardless of whether we like it or not.
Like slavery and racism. It is in our blood. We have all inherited it and been trained to respond accordingly. Race is not a biological fact; we now know the researchers say there is only one race: the human one. We are all the same species with the same chances of brilliance or dumbness. How we are trained and educated makes all the difference.
I hope others with real training and research will understand my point. We all inherited “Jim Crow” and it took off throughout the nation. Entitlement has done the same thing. Let each one of us have some real soul-searching and do our research of history, and accept the truth and hence change the present landscape of our nation. In the mix I think we need to ask for forgiveness and do some reparations to begin to balance the harm that we’ve done.
And in the meantime, this may make it a better place on Earth for everyone. Thank you for reading.
Dorothy Janke lives in Greenfield.