The Earth Hearing

by Daniel Plonix

  “I must say…judging by the facts on the ground, it looks like prison holds little deterrence.”

  “Well, it is a deterrence if they are on their way somewhere. Yet, for those whom life is a succession of instant gratifications with spikes of nihilistic excitement, prison is more of a rite of passage,” answered Galecki. “They get three square meals a day, television, and the opportunity to make meaningful connections with gang members of their choice. And if they do serious time, they come out with street cred. Oh, and they don’t have to pay a dime for any of it; prison stay is fully funded by taxpayers, not by them.”

  “Lovely,” said David dryly.

  Galecki said harshly, “One early morning in Syracuse, an old man was jumped by a black teen who punched him, causing him to collapse, unconscious. The assailant went to the store, treating himself for something, and then went back and commenced kicking the unconscious old man. As it turned out, there was no need; the first punch proved to be the fatal blow. The seventy-year-old man succumbed to it a few days later and died. Through the years, the elderly man was known to have given money to children for bus rides. He mowed his neighbors’ lawns. He was a quiet and gentle soul. And no one cared that he was murdered. Nothing like the response to the gratuitous murder of one black Stephen Lawrence by whites in the United Kingdom: a memorial plaque was put in place; his mom was elevated to the peerage as a Baroness; and a national ‘Stephen Lawrence Day’ commemoration is held annually.

  “All lives matter, but some lives really matter—when they serve to validate the blacks-as-victims-of-systemic-racism narrative. Thus, an arrested black man pinned down in Minneapolis died as he was pleading with a derisive cop, telling him he can’t breathe—and countless people erupted in mayhem and mass protests and hashtags and kneeling and lootings throughout the United States and beyond. A few years earlier, an arrested white man pinned down in Dallas died as he was pleading with a derisive cop, telling him he can’t breathe—and the public did not react.”

  Galecki’s features clouded. “Two years ago, a young black man entered the Contra Costa County Library in the San Francisco Bay Area. He spotted an elderly patron, walked over and struck him hard on the side of the head. The white librarian yelled at him to stop, and the black man rushed him and started beating up the librarian. Blood began to splatter the walls. At some point, the assailant left. And his mother, who was waiting outside, drove off with him.

  “Those who commit these deeds are self-entitled, vicious miscreants. Manipulative and self-centered, they have no regard for the natural world or the broader society. They are brutes in a way no member of a Stone Age tribe could have been, as the latter had to continuously protect and provide, rather than go through life slamming the heads of pedestrians for kicks and parading around with Air Jordan shoes.

  “Freedom without restraints can only exist when there is a broader social host making it possible. In a sound social environment, such a thing cannot be—as boys must grow up to be men. In turn, they have to raise offspring who will help—or all will starve. But as the state subsidizes irresponsibility and as the prevailing narrative excuses away the rotten and the degenerate, some blacks languish in perpetuity at a preadolescent stage untrammeled by social bounds.”

  “Who are those people?” muttered David, his outrage unmistakable.

  “Do you mean those who stomp on white people, or do you mean their buddies who record it and stream it on Facebook Live? Do you mean those black passersby who observe in grim satisfaction, or those who walk by without giving it a second look? Do you mean those who enable it by perpetuating the mindset and belief system that make much of it possible, or those who subsidize it with their taxes? Those are concentric circles. The tip of the arrow is pointed and narrow and the head flares ever wider. There is an entire ecosystem enabling it. At any rate, it is unknown of course what segments of the black community make up these concentric circles. Certainly, some do not. Just as certain, some do.”

  He rubbed his forehead wearily. “I can tell you that much: Sure as hell, I don’t see no black folks marching with arms hooked together, protesting against this, or rushing to the aid of whites under assault. I don’t see no black allies. I believe that for blacks in America—educated and uneducated alike—the conditions and interests of the black community are the terra firma from which their broader social outlook emanates.

  “Take for instance that day on a school bus in Wake County, when a young white child was beaten on the head by black students. A white girl stood up and told them to stop. However, those she addressed lack empathy and impulse control. They react violently to any opposition or defiance. She was swarmed, attacked, taken down, and stomped on. Here was an opportunity for the black bus driver to step in. But he did nothing, presumably just letting the black youths teach the white girl her place. Presumably, so did all the black passengers. Later, her mom, a single-parent, was pressured by some in the local black people into not filing charges.”

  “One better not cross them, huh?”

  “Better not,” agreed Galecki. “Two months ago, in Sandy, Oregon, a young black woman ranted and swore at the Taco Bell employees for how long it took to get her order. Another patron, a white man, told her to pipe down. After a brief, heated exchange, the black woman stormed out but returned minutes later. She walked by the man—then suddenly reached out with a knife, slashed his throat, and run out. This happened in front of his wife.

  “The other day in Central Park, a woman, some Karen, walked past three young black people who proceeded to shoot her in the head with a pellet gun. Blood was gushing. The woman was getting into medical shock. As she turned around, one of the black perps hissed, ‘Fuck you. You fucking white bitch!’ Another yelled, ‘All white people suck. Fuck white people!’ Those who do not perceive the lived experience of whites in some areas, need to check their privileges.

  “Had such things happened in the 1950s, it would have played out differently.

  “Back then, the reaction would have been different upon learning that a white couple was savagely beaten by black teens and tweens to the screams of ‘get those crackers!’ and ‘white motherfuckers!’–as it occurred last year in Brooklyn. Back then, the reaction would have been different upon learning that a white pregnant woman is being pummeled by a swarm of black people—as it occurred in a public bus in Seattle three years ago. Back then, the reaction would have been different upon learning that a white teenage girl was ambushed, spat upon, savagely beaten by a mob and then thrown, with cheers, attempting to land her body under the wheels of a moving car—as it happened in the Interboro area in Pennsylvania last year. Back then, the reaction would have been different upon learning that an autistic young man was tied up and his mouth covered. A group of blacks kicked and punched him, laughing and shouting, “Fuck white people!” while one of them cutting into the horror-stricken autistic boy’s scalp with a knife and another gleefully streaming it on Facebook Live—as recently occurred in Chicago.

  “Had these incidences happened in the 1950s, hundreds of white residents would have come pouring out, some armed with baseball bats and guns. And then tens of thousands, once it would escalate and the majority-white populace forcibly re-asserted proper boundaries of conduct amid fellow Americans.

  “Those days are long gone. The general society prohibits whites from cultivating solidarity or acknowledging the nature of these incidences.”

  He continued in a quieter voice, “The prevailing, unarticulated view is that boys will be boys, and blacks will be blacks. But this indulgent view plays down the depth of malice. The hate they give.

  “Filthy, racist lyrics by various prominent black rappers put to shame antisemitic songs in Nazi Germany: ‘I kill a devil right now…I say kill whitey all nightey long’ or ‘I would kill a cracker for nothing, just for the fuck of it’ or ‘go on a killing spree, putting devils out their misery; hearing screams, sounds of agony’ or ‘I'm
killing more crackers than Bosnia-Herzegovina, each and everyday…don't bust until you see the whites of his eyes, the whites of his skin’ or ‘Swing by on the pale guy…break him in the neck…shaking pinky up on a dull-ass ice-pick.’ These major-label artists have a role not unlike imams’ in the Muslim world.”

  Galecki smiled. “There is a lot more to it than meets the eye.” He lit a new cigarette.

  “After the Civil War, the emancipated blacks did not have it easy,” he stated and blew out smoke from his nostrils. “But neither did the Chinese, who arrived to America with nothing but the shirt on their backs, and then were oppressed for generations to come.

  “Chinese could not testify in court against whites. Due to their race, they were ineligible to receive citizenship. Interracial marriage was forbidden. They were also resented by the general population. In Seattle and in Tonopah, hundreds were forcibly driven out. In Tacoma, whites burned Chinese homes. In a race riot in Los Angeles, over a dozen Chinese immigrants were hung by a mob. In Rock Springs, Wyoming, close to thirty Chinese Americans were slaughtered in a hatefest.

  “Persecuted, harassed, and barred from the general economy—the Chinese were forced to rely on their own resources and on each other. They did. Their work ethic, academic diligence, and subsequent material success gradually won the admiration of the general population. Subsequently, the public shed their outlook of the Chinese as bestial and animalistic and never looked back.

  “Meanwhile, the black Americans also paddled their way in the face of hostility, oppression, and under discriminatory regulations—making slow, steady progress. In the forties and fifties, there was a steady decline in violence and unemployment rates. However, the black community was plagued with some internal problems. At least from what I observed when I lived in New York City in 1961.

  “Black Americans didn’t have a business class of small manufacturers and store owners. Put another way, unlike other groups, they didn’t possess the patronage and kinship networks that could facilitate the hiring of fellow black people and, in the long run, upward mobility. In the black community, practically no one donated money for the community, whether to charity or to public centers. Last but not least, black Americans had not developed a culture of saving; they were living it up today, letting tomorrow take care of itself. The contrast was obvious enough with the black immigrants from the Caribbean who had come to New York earlier in the century and shared a history of chattel slavery. The black immigrants bought homes and opened businesses. They stressed saving, hard work, and education. Not surprisingly, many of the black professionals in the city were those whose parents came from the West Indies.

  “Without access to jobs and the means to support a family, or even contribute meaningfully, black men were alienated from their roles as fathers and providers. It resulted in divorce, child abandonment, and out-of-wedlock births. Without fathers around, some of their boys didn’t know how to be men, how to become responsible breadwinners. When it is all said and done, in the early 60s, one in every four black households was headed by a single mother.”

  David raised an eyebrow. That was twice the present-day rate in Israel.

  Galecki continued, “During that time, two narratives vied for dominance among black Americans. One viewed blackness in racial, not ethnic, terms, and it held that a fundamental gulf set the two races apart. It called for self-sufficiency among blacks, called for separation from the whites, and was quite militant about all of this. The other narrative aspired for an integrated American nation, a post-racial society. It called for a color-blind, merit-based economy, with a focus on the individual and their liberty. These two visions were polar opposite yet shared the aim of restoring dignity to a downtrodden people through development emanating from within. In the end, when the starless midnight of white racism gave way to a new morn, when institutional oppression and segregation were dismantled, both of those suns rose in the sky. Yet a third one did as well.

  “One century earlier, when the blacks were newly emancipated, Frederick Douglass stated: ‘What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy….The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us.…Do nothing with us!…And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall....All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!…your interference is doing him positive injury.’

  “This call for self-responsibility played out among the Chinese Americans. They had no lobby group and no elected officials to represent them. And during the 1960s, they were moving ahead on their own, with no help from the government, not then, not ever.

  “With blacks, this was not to be the case, at least not across the board. Starting in the 1960s, under the guise of benevolence and pity, the government was to assume the role of a nanny and a crutch, made possible by the taxpayer. The blacks were not asked to shoulder anything or be even in part responsible for their own advancement. Paternalism toward blacks was reinstated as the official state theology. It still does to this day. Once again, the blacks were invited to take on their earlier identity of disenfranchised people lacking agency. Subsequently, the declining trends of unemployment and violence did a U-turn and climbed with a vengeance. This was also the birth of the violent inner-city culture of today.

  “A segment of the black Americans population went their own way. Yet, some never did escape the embrace of the new welfare plantation and the call of the Sirens, whispering that the white system contrives to hold them back and stifle their advancement, that racist undercurrents stack the deck against them, and that Mama government will take care of them. Or as one song goes, ‘Mama’s gonna keep you right here under her wing. She won’t let you fly, but she might let you sing. Of course mama’s gonna help build the wall.’

  “Since the 60s, many more black moms married the state. David, at present, almost three out of four black households are headed by a single mother, with fathers nowhere around.” Galecki rubbed his neck. “It is as someone said, marriage orients the husband and wife toward the future, asking them not just to commit to each other but to plan, to earn, to save, and to devote themselves to advancing their children’s prospects. Well, that went out of the window.

  “Since the 60s, a segment of the black population has come to view learning for learning’s sake as a white thing. A black subculture has sq­uashed the desire of its members to speak standard English, intellectually strive, or be passionate about affairs that, properly speaking, do not affect black people.

  “In the welfare plantation, underachievement has been embraced as it steers youth toward the safety of government handouts, and the beginning of a lifelong marital relation with the government. Having an actual husband around is a handicap, as the mother is eligible to fewer handouts. Getting a higher paying job is a drawback as it severe one’s access to government benefits. The gold standard has been a single woman with kids, who are a significant income generating source; the more kids, the more benefits.

  “To a grotesque degree, the welfare plantation accentuates the worst in the makeup of a given culture.”

  He smiled to himself. “A large segment of educated whites on the Left regard, unconsciously, black Americans as members of a child race, a proper subject of white man’s burden and patronizing benevolence, to be permanently on the dole and under their care. For many of those whites, it is a pet project, quite literally. This strain of soft racism marinating in virtue sauce was present for centuries among the educated whites. And indeed there is validity to their claim about systemic racism in America that keeps the blacks down; they should know, as they are its architects and propagators.”

  Galecki said, “I can think of no better symbol of what was and could have been than Dunbar, a black-only public high school in Washington DC, which a century ago saw four-fifth of its graduates go to college: an astounding percentage during those times. Some of Dunbar’s black graduates went on to become cabinet members,
army colonels, federal judges, artists, business leaders, and biologists. Dunbar high school was segregated, had no diversity, and was underfunded. Dunbar was separate and unequal, that is to say, it was downright better than most schools for whites or for blacks, with its culture of ruthless perseverance and excellence.

  “Later, Dunbar was condemned as elitist and was duly taken care of. Today, it’s just another ghetto school with curses echoing in the hallways with the occasional need to break up fights.

  “Once again, the bigotry of low expectations was to take hold of some blacks in America. Except when it doesn’t. Except in venues no one gives blacks a quarter, nor are they expecting to receive any. Consequently, some blacks have gone ahead to achieve world-class virtuosity and merit.

  “Ray Charles pioneered and fused R & B gospel and country music. James Brown was to be the godfather of funk music. Tupac Shakur elevated rap to a sophisticated art form. Billie Holiday was perhaps the most expressive jazz singer of all times. Jimi Hendrix is regarded as the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music. Muhammad Ali redefined boxing. Serena Williams ruled the tennis court. Simone Biles was the greatest gymnast the world may have seen. And there have been others.

  “There are streaks of greatness to be found within the narrative, culture, and outlook of the black American community. This is a source of a drive without bounds, ruthless unwavering commitment to excellence, achievement, and to music that nourishes one’s soul.

  “The world in general and the United States, in particular, would have been a vastly diminished place without those people who have inspired and enriched countless others.”

  Contents

  Part One 1937 Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3