Madness that trancendes Self

Collecting information for the tunnel of oppression was a stark eye opener to me. I realized there are many things that are sometimes beyond our scope of empathy. Read on.

"White people are running around trying to save everything including stupid, useless niggers....We need ethnic cleansing on a massive scales in this country. Fcuk sending them back to Africa, we should just sweep them into the sea. Sharks gotta eat too," wrote one white supremacist on VNN about Hurricane Katrina black victims.

On Dec 7th, 1995: Two African American residents of Fayetteville, North Carolina, were brutally and senselessly murdered by three soldiers who apparently identified themselves as Neo-Nazi skin heads. Police said the soldiers were looking for black people to harass and shot the victims as they were walking down the street. Micheal James, 36 and Jackie Burden, 27, were shot down in a city street in the early morning hours.

On Mar 29th, 1996: An African American woman, Bridget Ward and her two daughters, Jamila, 9 and Jasmine, 3 moved into a rented home in the virtually all-white Philly neighbourhood of Bridesburg. Late that night, she heard young people marching down the street, chanting, "Burn, motherfcuker burn." The next morning, Ward, who works as a nurse's aide, found racial slurs smeared on her house, ketchup spilled on the front side walk and back porch, and an oily liquid was splattered in the rear.

1993: In Fairfax County, Virginia, an affluent community near Washington, DC, A 41 year old black woman heard the doorbell ring at the home where she was house-sitting. When she looked out the window, she saw a cross burning 10 feet from the front door.

1994: In Los Angeles suburb of South Gate, the white neighbours of a black woman burned a cross on her lawn, kicked her children, hanged and gassed her puppies and placed "White Power" signs on her property.

Wedowee became the focus of national attention in 1994 when the high school principal threatened to cancel the prom if inter-racial couples planned to attend. He announced to the school that a young woman of mixed race had been a "mistake". The final result of racial tensions provoked by the divided community was a school that was burned to the ground.

A crossburning took place outside a black student's dormitory at LSU in January 1992, and in February, a cross was burned at a black family's home in frisco.In april 1993, the only person of color in a group of youths in New Orleans was struck and dragged by a car occupied by white men who yelled racial slurs at the black college student.

Three inmates of the Picayune jail were visited in July 1990 by men wearing Klan masks. The men placed a knife to the throat of one inmate and threatened to kill him. A police officer and jailer were implicated by an FBI investigation.

Approximately 250 marchers turned out in Meridian and Philly on April 27, 1991, for a march sponsored by the Confederate Knights of America. About 30 skinheads acted as security for the march and later that evening , a triple crossburning was held near Decatur.

The most gruesome of all was the story of Byrd, 49, who accepted a ride from suspects as he walked home from a niece's bridal shower. Police believed that instead of taking him home, the men drove Byrd to a wooded area, beat him, chained him behind Berry's truck and sped down a bumpy road east of town. Allegedly Brewer said that the victim's throat was cut before they dragged him. Byrd's severed head, neck and right arm were discovered about a mile from where his shredded torso was dumped. A trial of blood, body parts and personal effects stretched for two miles, police said. This happened in Texas.

I can understand that these atrocities are far surpassed by the ones commited in our own continent of Africa, but what I fail to see is the logic. USA claims to be a haven of democracy and equal rights. 130 years after the abolishment of slavery and there are still incidences of oppression. How can you be an advocate for human rights when it is not even followed within your borders nor believed by some of your citizens?