The Earth Hearing

by Daniel Plonix

  He rubbed his shoulder absently. He wasn’t sure where to start. “A few months back in Louisville, Kentucky, two white grandparents stro­lled in the Big Four Bridge area with their little grandchildren. A large pack of blacks converged on them and commenced beating up the grandfather in front of his wife and small girls, all of whom yelled and pleaded with the assailants. After the group grew weary of hitting Grandpa, they resorted to mocking him. Those who witnessed it did nothing. I confess I have often thought about this incident. Such black-on-white gratuitous attacks have been occurring in America for decades.”

  David hissed indignantly. “Sounds like those black people had a thing for whites!”

  Galecki exhaled a stream of smoke. “Had it been the reverse—with a black grandfather beaten up by whites with malice in their heart—there would’ve been protests and riots, along with a special address by the President. But it isn’t, so it’s not.” He added in a sharp voice, “Thus, we can also have a Beat Whitey Night, where a bunch of blacks get together to brutalize whites—and no voices are publicly heard crying out in indignation and outrage over the racial persecution. And if this can happen in the Iowa State Fair, you know that the targeting of whites by blacks is more pervasive than anyone cares to acknowledge. Still, an inconvenient truth has a way of intruding when you least expect it.

  “In a city bus in Baltimore, a white family irritated the black driver. Under the urging of one of the black passengers, the bus driver subsequently dialed the cavalry, and two stops later, about twenty black youths boarded the bus. When the white family got off, the young men followed them and proceeded to choke and bash their heads onto the ground, while the black passengers looked on and the driver held the bus. The three whites who were beaten were a mother, a father, and their nine-year-old boy. This happened last week.”

  Shocked and outraged, David sat stiffly upright on the bench, staring at Galecki wide-eyed.

  “For decades, such attacks have been occurring throughout: in Port­land and Rochester, Green Bay and Memphis, Milwaukee and Kan­sas City, Norfolk and Austin, Brooklyn and Louisville, Minneapolis and Atlanta, and elsewhere.” Galecki lit a new cigarette and inhaled deeply. “Many of the perps are sadistic predators delighting in the pain and agony they generate.”

  “I’ve never heard about any of this,” the old man murmured, half to himself. He was reeling.

  “There is a media blackout and search-engine algorithm whitewashing of this reality if you pardon the puns. But it is all hidden in plain sight. One needs to understand code words such as ‘unruly teens.’ But mostly, one needs to connect the dots. And almost no one wants to.”

  Anger was evident on David’s face. “It sounds like those assaults are racially motivated. Why people won’t state this?”

  “They will be accused of being racists.”

  “That’s what I just said.” David was bleak.

  “No, the white people will be accused of being racists.”

  “Oh, yes.” He understood now. “But of course.” The old man smiled grimly. Never mind that white Americans were some of the least racists people on the planet.

  Galecki said, “Anyway, the faithful also make a claim that only whites can be racists.”

  “How do they figure?”

  “They say, racism can only flow downstream from groups that control the economy and resources.”

  A flicker of grim humor strayed across David’s face. By that logic, KKK members in the 2010s couldn't be racists. All twenty-five of them. “Racism is when one attributes to all members of a racial group a fundamental otherness, some mental capacity or hard-wired behavioral traits that set them intrinsically apart. Everyone is capable of being a racist.

  “Anyway,” he added, “whites as a group do not control resources and the economy. This would have necessitated tribal relation among Caucasians or regulations that institute preferential treatment for Cauc­asians. These days, neither exists. Granted, in America, many individuals in power positions have a lighter skin pigmentation; however, this means zip to the people who have similar skin tones and live in trailer parks or in economically depressed towns in Appalachia. I have no stake in this, but I must say, it is offensive to suggest whites, as such, wield power and resources in this country when over half of them are working class or barely scraping a living. And when the average median household income of Indian Americans, Filipino Americans, and Pakistani Americans is significantly higher than theirs.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir,” said Galecki, smiling faintly. “Anyway, as for the gratuitous attacks I mentioned, at least in part, they’re made possible by the recognition something is amiss with whites nowadays. They have no in-group solidarity, which every other group possesses. Whites are atomized. They will merely blink in confusion, cry in dismay, and try to call the cops. They will never rally together as blacks may. Targeting whites is referred to by some black hoodlums as ‘polar bear hunting.’ But it is more akin to deer hunting.”

  He spat out, “In a beat-down in Sherman Park, Milwaukee, one could hear the black young people hollering to each other and whooping: ‘Are they white?’ ‘Are there whites?’ ‘They’re white! Get them!’ ‘They’re white! Come on, nigga!’ ‘Burn that bitch up!’ ‘Fuck him up!’ Laughter, and then other voices: ‘They’re beating up every white person. Better no white person comes down Sherman!’ Next, some urgent yells, ‘There’s one right here! He’s white! Beat his shit! Get him out of his car! Get him out!’”

  The old man was listening with growing dismay.

  “David, blacks in America have a different life experience than whites.” Galecki’s eyes grew somewhat dim. “They don’t walk through the world with a white skin. They don’t have the white experience where entire neighborhoods are no-go zones for fear of being racially targeted; areas they will not venture into if they know what’s good for them. They don’t have the lived experience of being white students in some black-majority public schools, where the prospect of being racially targeted, physically assaulted and verbally abused, is real.”

  David wanted to know. “What do most whites make of those racial, gratuitous attacks?”

  “They do not,” Galecki said contemptuously. “They don’t see. They can’t see. These deeds don’t fit what they tell themselves about the dyn­amics of present-day America.”

  He spread his hands in a gesture of futility. “White silence enables this violence.”

  David looked at him dubiously.

  Galecki sighed. “I suppose if a white family is personally assaulted and is forced to negotiate this reality, they are as likely as not to blame members of the white community, as they are perceived by them to be the adults in the room.” Hell, he had read that some whites maintained that voter ID laws are racist, fancying that a substantial number of blacks did not possess a driving license or some other form of ID and, more to the point, were not competent enough to obtain them. It was the perennial bigotry of low expectations toward blacks in America. “Or perhaps blame the government,” he went on, “or the system, or the American culture, or low income, or public schools, or slavery, or something. But come what may, they will excuse the perps.”

  David gazed off into the distance.

  “Is it not possible”—David hesitated—“is it not possible that the black-on-white violence is some sort of response for the racial discriminations and persecutions of generations past?”

  Galecki eyed him. “I don’t see any Jews bashing in the heads of Russians for the pogroms their grandparents lived under—or pummeling pregnant German women for the murders their grandfathers committed. And I don’t see any Chinese-American youths assaulting elderly white folks as a payback for the violent persecutions their community suffered in the past—or stomping on white children for the apartheid their ancestors endured.” He crossed his ankle over his knee. “Anyway, could what transpired in the previous era to people mostly
long dead justify these brutalities—had these actually been a response to the past?”

  Galecki studied David. The old man was looking back at him. “Like many, you may wish to dress up the status quo,” he offered, not unkindly. “Or maybe you just overanalyze the situation. After all, black hoodlums are also assaulting, albeit at lower rates, members of other ethnic groups—from Asians in south Philly to ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn. And what beef do the African-American perps have with them?”

  Galecki threw up his hands in disgust and then lapsed into silence. As a group, blacks had not been asked to shoulder any responsibility for their own advancement, he mused. Under one pretext or another, paternalism toward blacks has always been the official state theology in America.

  Aloud, he said, “Corporate and government racial policies prejudicing African Americans are a thing of the past. But the belief in systemic oppression lives on. Racial grievances have been like a turd that won’t flush. Since the sixties, it spawned a host of careers, academic fields, and federal programs. It’s an industry whose raw material is a victim entity. It is no longer about ushering a post-racial world but about cashing in on a narrative of systemic racial discrimination. It has been a vehicle for extracting concessions from the general public. ‘Being hooked on oppression,’ as someone referred to it. Both blacks and whites have been supporting this malevolent, incapacitating narrative. Enabling it. Fueling it.”

  He gave an exasperated sigh. “In some contexts, this expresses itself in institutionalized race-based policies: giving blacks preferential treatment in college admission and in job positions over whites and Asians. Moreover, people of color are frequently picked over more qualified white candidates in any of the organizations that aim to improve their so-called diversity profile, in keeping up with the times. In short, black and brown skin privilege. And, well, female privilege.”

  Galecki continued, “Hence, covertly, the UK police in Gloucestershire had turned away over one hundred recruits for no other reason than they were white males. Hence, covertly, the Federal Aviation Administration, in its determination to raise its percentage of black traffic air controllers, broadened the pool of candidates by considering nonqualified people. Hence, covertly, Canadian Armed Forces has two different recruitment pipelines: one for people of color and women and one for white males—who are periodically barred from consideration if an internal quota of privileged group members is not met in a given recruitment season.”

  David’s smile broke into a hard, bitter laugh.

  Galecki grinned feebly. “And if someone happened to be born black and female and seeks a job as a music conductor, why, she can be mediocre but will be snapped up all the same. Orchestras, saddled with white male conductors, will attempt to recruit the colored female as an amulet for warding off any possible allegations of sexism and racism that may loom in the future. It’s the stuff of satire, I tell you,” Galecki added, noting David’s silent laughter.

  There was a slight smile at the corners of his mouth. “Universities hire, come what may, a large enough number of people with high melanin content, lest their research funding from the National Science Foundation will be cut off.” He didn’t try to hide his amusement.

  “Organizations beat back race hustlers; throw hundreds of millions of dollars at diversity shamans to be re-certified as taint-free; appoint diversocrats; and send employees to implicit bias reeducation workshops and teachers to ‘deep equity’ training. In sum, a concoction of virtue-­signaling, do-gooding, and the nullification of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 have begotten a diversity-industrial complex.”

  David frowned. “Nullification of the Act, you say?”

  Galecki shrugged. “This started in 1969. The Labor Department ordered contractors bidding on federally-assisted construction projects to make a good-faith effort to hire a certain minimum number of minorities. This was the wedge that opened the door for coerced racial preferences. It was also a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which was drafted to ensure that rules would be applied with equal measure to all, irrespective of race or gender. The Act states that no preferential treatment is to be granted on account of an imbalance which may exist with respect to any race or sex in a given firm.

  “Things went downhill from there. During the 1970s, the Equal Empl­oyment Opportunity Commission aggressively pushed comp­anies to hire females and people of color in higher numbers, even in the absence of prior racist or misogynist hiring practices.

  “The overturning by government agencies of Title VII was buttressed by a series of Supreme Court rulings by the philosopher kings of the court. It started off in 1971 with Griggs v. Duke Power Co., where a power company set a high school graduation and a certain IQ threshold as prerequisites—and relatively few black people met those criteria. The repeal of Title VII was complete by the time of Johnson v. Transportation Agency case, 1987, where it was in effect affirmed that, due to his sex, the most qualified person should not be promoted—and a female should be granted the position.”

  Galecki grew pensive. “How different are the black Americans of today from poverty-stricken recent Chinese immigrants.

  “Tens if not hundreds of thousands of poorly-educated Fuzhounese-Chinese farmers, fishermen, and sweatshop workers have been clawing their ways into New York City in the last decades via goddamned chain migration, fake papers, or being physically smuggled into the country.” He made a sound that left no doubt what he thought of it. “Be it as it may, much as Nigerian immigrants put to rest some of the excuses of black Americans, the Fuzhounese-Chinese put to rest other common excuses.

  “Conversing in a semi-obscure Chinese dialect, they are neither familiar with our culture nor speak our language. These Chinese immigrants crowd apartments four to a room, subsist on rice, work brutally long hours washing dishes and cleaning hotel rooms. Then they wake up their kids before dawn to go over math. The children learn English and excel, come hell or high water. When they reach high school age, their academic performance frequently qualifies them to one of the city’s elite public schools. And in New York City, that’s saying something.” Or did until a year earlier. “The economic prospects look bright for these tenacious people. Fuzhounese-Chinese sacrifice for their offspring and extended kin; the offspring dedicate their success to their parents and extended family. One for all, all for one.

  “People gripe about stereotypes and biases blacks in America are saddled with.” Galecki’s eyes focused on David, and he made a swift, sharp gesture. “Let me tell you something. When the preponderance, overwhelming majority of Ebonic Americans put front and center academic achievement, civic responsibility, self-sacrifice, and family unity, the stereotypes and biases will take care of themselves.”

  David nodded slowly.

  What a deranged social reality, he reflected.

  The two of them fell silent.

  Chapter 23

  David turned to Galecki. “Do you think white Americans are experiencing some sort of guilt for what transpired in the past?”

  The other man’s mouth twisted wryly. “I reckon it is more like an original sin that is passed down through the generations, requiring token repentance throughout one’s life with no possible absolution. In part, it is fueled by the natural desire of people to retain good social and professional standings. As a white, if you make some remarks and later found guilty of bigotry by a mob of your peers, you are through. Too toxic to touch. Given their bourgeois roots, any and all whites are susceptible to questioning of their proletariat commitment. Even card-carrying party members are not immune.”

  “That’s what I reckon, too,” David said, scowling. “Sweden has become a rape hub since the influx of foreigners, and nearly half of the women in high immigrant areas state they feel unsafe after dark. However, no one dares to publicly say that most of the perps are migrants from Africa and the Middle East. It’s the same dynamics you’ve talked about.” His disdai
n was palpable. “In northern Sweden a woman was gang-raped by ten men. The media chose to obscure the ethnicity and not to include the physical description of the ‘dark-skinned’ assailants, which would have helped in apprehending them. No white in Sweden wants to call things as they are lest they will be exposed to the charge of bigotry and racism.” He thought some more. “This also explains why the establishment in Sweden has been covertly censoring public discussions about the hundreds of schools torched and has been covertly censoring public discussions about the bomb explosions spree—in hair salons, apartment buildings, and whatnot—as migrant gangs war with each other.” Just in the last couple of days, a bomb went off in Borås, dozens of cars were on fire in Umeå, shooting took place in Linköping, and a fourteen-year-old girl was found in a ditch outside Stockholm.

  David went on, “Essentially, that is also why the Danish media has been understating incidents where packs of migrants savagely beat young Danes for the fun of it, as recently happened to a teenage girl in Helsingør and, on the same day, to a teenage boy in Hillerød. Meanwhile, German authorities have been underreporting sex crimes of Muslim migrants and the knife-related crime-epidemic. And then there is the United Kingdom,” he said bitterly, “where in addition to widespread knife crimes, the grooming of white underage girls has been going on for many years. The police reports filed by the victims and their families have been buried.”