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| Verbal tags as weapons |
The United States of America is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and very socially diverse nation. Our nation was actually born of the desire to escape the reality of social and religious bigotry, intolerance from a 'majority' population and perceptions of oppression against a 'minority' group. Despite the fact the nation's first non-native populations were immigrants, subsequent immigrant groups were forced to work through decades of discrimination, bigotry, racism, and (never forget) sexism. I suggest that discrimination and oppressive acts are still being perpetrated against black people, Latins, and, yes, women (In aggregate). The nations earliest immigrants gave birth to people who grew to practice some of the most heinous forms of mistreatment of "the other". From German Immigrants, to Irish Immigrants, to Italian Immigrants, to Chinese Immigrants, and possibly before all of the aforementioned 'forced immigration 'of Africans into human bondage, our nation has a horrid past. Yet, without question it is the most wonderful place to live on Earth. It is a wonderful place of conferred freedoms, deprived freedoms and denied freedoms spread across 330 million people.
The nation could very well be a place of flourishing freedoms for all, if we rid ourselves of the mental bondage associated with bias, bigotry, racism and 'conferred privilege' for the majority population. Conferred privilege is not a state of being from which the majority population can opt-out; it is conferred by birth to white people. Of course, most white people have either learned, or come to a point, of understanding that such privilege is wrong and most have moved to a mental state of equality for all. As is always the case, many retain their want of 'privilege' and they seek safe harbor offered by those who provide oratory for their 'safe place'.
