PRELUDE:   “Get out of my car,” I said evenly to the pledge. “Why?” “You can’t say that in my car.” “What, nigger?” “Yeah.” “Man, I’ve got lots of black friends. There’s a difference between blacks and niggers.” “Get the fuck out of my car,” I demanded. As the door closed behind him I shook my head in disgust, knowing it was a lost cause.

Twenty-years later they built the fence around our fraternity house the angry white minority of our brotherhood always wanted. Our fraternity house sits precariously along a set of railroad tracks separating the Haves from the Have-Nots.

The fence stands eight-feet tall and for everything I detest in this world. It stands against the laws of goodness, unity and acceptance. It stands as a symbol to the failings of our brotherhood and white men everywhere. For there is no need to accept and understand others once you’ve built a wall to exclude them.

I grew tired of explaining my “liberal” perspective and moved West to live in an exceptionally white town with a liberal white majority. Since then I’ve spent fourteen blissful years living a nature lover’s utopian dream, insulating myself from the reality of America’s shrinking middle-class and rising income inequity – which I believe to be the two main reasons for our nation’s current social unrest. Propagated by the natural extension of an unchecked, rampant Neo-Capitalist system that consolidates wealth in the top 1% by protecting millionaires, billionaires, Wall Street, insurance companies, big-business and multinational corporations – America’s middle class has weakened and become less financially secure. It’s this growing income disparity that has generated the mass-insecurity from which an angry and defiant Trump campaign has grown.

And so, our day of reckoning has arrived in the form of a hate-spewing, Neo-Capitalist businessman… and sadly, I as part of the politically inactive silent white majority know I’m complicit, by failing to actively support minorities and defend the democratic principals all working-class Americans owe our wealth, security and good fortune to.

My point being, the time has come for America’s silent white majority to take responsibility for their inaction and stand tall against the angry white minority who wish to build a wall of division in our country and along our Southern boarder.

Now is the time to scream, “Get the fuck out of my car!” to silence those who stand for Trump and against the American principal of, “liberty and justice for all” which unites our nation.

TO:

Now I ask you, who’s exhibiting “violent tendencies” here?

What scares me the most about this incident is that the officer honestly believes he did his job to the best of his ability and was justified in his actions. While it’s possible be critical of this woman’s reluctance to close her door, I would suggest that she had good reason to be scared and “uncooperative” as the events and discussion that followed ultimately proved.

Earlier today I read about a white male being discriminated against for having too high of an IQ Score to become a police officer. A state judge ruled against his appeal on the grounds that highly intelligent officers are more likely to quit the force after receiving expensive police training, which is a waste of state resources.

Good thing that cop from the video was hired instead, right? When did our country begin devaluing intellect and favoring mental mediocrity? I’m sorry, but I struggle to think of one vocation that benefits from a less intelligent labor force. Personally I’d argue that public safety, being the primary reason for police officers in the first place, benefits substantially when guns are in the hands of officers with “excessive” intellect,  rather than tactical training. Of course, basic morality and steady judgement would be nice too!

This video absolutely breaks my heart. Every action and reaction on both sides of the encounter is driven by fear. Both the woman and the officer fear for their safety which culminates in a disgusting show of what our law enforcement officials commonly consider “justifiable force.”

Personally, I think race relations on an individual basis are better today in our nation than ever before. There is more genuine openness and acceptance within our populace than the media or our personal news streams suggest, as America is becoming more diverse every day.

The real problems that need addressing are institutional. We have a top-down problem that’s perpetuated by a shrinking white majority that’s fearful of losing power, status and wealth. Scared of losing control, they’ve begun justifying their actions and governance by blaming minorities for our nation’s problems while systematically infringing on their civil liberties.

This bigotry and xenophobia is born from the same racist sentiment that’s plagued our nation since its inception – and it’s this fear which manifests as hatred that has brought about the rise of every Nationalist movement that’s ever existed.

A shrinking white majority fearful of losing power, blames the growing minority population for the nation’s troubles by pushing a scary and negative narrative to win the support of a fearful populace, effectively creating more divisiveness and friction in the country which feeds their agenda and ultimately comes to justify their unfair, unjust and patently undemocratic actions.

The growing police state in America is a problem. The rise of Nationalism in America is a bigger problem. Both our burgeoning militarized police presence and America’s angry white populace are born from the negative and fearful perspective that the world is a dangerous place and becoming increasingly so every day.

It is this sensationally ominous mental paradigm, one which is perpetuated by our 24-hour news agencies, who derive higher-earnings from higher-ratings, that causes everyday Americans to feel more fearful and less secure with the passing of every news cycle. And it’s this feeling of insecurity that has become an incubator for resentment, growing distrust and intolerance against anyone of differing values, race, religion, gender, beliefs, sexual orientation or status.

Fear and hate are not innate qualities. They are learned behaviors. That “white” cop and “black” woman are of one race, that of the human race – and they were both born as loving and trusting individuals. It’s their negative past experiences that molded the prism through which they view their current reality and drove their actions that regretful day. Neither of them were acting willfully during the moments of this encounter. They were both living on autopilot, propelled by past negative associations and events that directed her to exit the vehicle and him to become overly aggressive, escalating the situation to a confrontation that could have easily been avoided.

SERVITUDE:

And is this not what’s happening within our political arena at this very moment? Are we not living on autopilot ourselves, driven by past associations we give no thought or credence to? Are we not heading towards a confrontation that only the most radical Americans on both sides wish to see?

I don’t know, but what I do know with absolute certainty is that WE as a nation, who still champion the principals of democracy and justice for the world cannot let Trump, our media or anyone else perpetuate the negative, fear-based narrative that America is wildly unsafe and as such, we need more police protection.

It’s just another power grab using  McCarthyism tactics to enact more PatriotAct-esque legislation in an attempt to consolidate power in the Executive Branch to control the general public while simultaneously marginalizing minorities through social exclusion, all in the name of national protection.

Wake up America! WE, our policies and our allies are the reason nearly half the world’s populace live in fully democratic states, but that also means more than half of the world’s citizens still live in fully communist or partially democratic countries!

After traveling extensively over the past twenty-five years I can tell you that every partial-democracy and Communist state I’ve visited has two things in common. They all have an intensely strong police presence and their people live in fear of the law. All of their people, not just the poor. Nobody is safe under authoritarian rule. Just look at the recent events in Turkey as an example of a democratic nation that’s fallen under authoritarian control and has turned against their people in the name of moral imperatives.

In these authoritarian states, police officers are paid well to ensure their loyalty to the party. These institutions are not looking for the brightest applicants, they are looking for those with a propensity towards loyalty. Sound familiar? Our court system recently ruled that highly intellectual officers don’t fit the mold, not to combat overspending – but because intellectuals are harder to control and thus pose a threat to the status quo. Intelligent people encourage change, something police departments have little incentive to do so long as officers are being paid well and department budgets keep expanding. Our police and jail systems benefit from confrontation by using each encounter to statistically justify their existence. Sadly, that poor woman’s struggle gets counted as one more reason to hire another loyal police officer.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I along with most affluent white people like the police. They serve and protect me very well. Sometimes I think they can be jerks, but I’ve always felt they’d have my back if shit ever went down – a sentiment few minority citizens have ever shared.

But right now, sitting here on my comfy couch, eating Tamari almonds and typing on my fancy MacBook Air I must confess to feeling less secure today than anytime since the height of the Cold War… and it’s certainly not because I fear the minorities of America.

It’s because I fear the angry, right-wing “conservative” Caucasians of America who have hijacked the Republican Party and are using hate-fueled rhetoric to shame the moderate Republican base into compliance. It’s because the rise of Nationalism in America would not only lead to division within our nation, an increase in racial tension and the continued need for a militarized police state, but would also serve to destabilize NATO and Western democracies around the world, opening the door for Russia and China to push their anti-democratic doctrine.

This election isn’t just a referendum on the intelligence or morality of the American public – it could be the fulcrum that serves to distance our allies, tipping us toward a more insular, pre-WWII foreign policy approach that creates a true super-power power vacuum and propels us towards a more dangerous and uncertain future. Americans cannot afford to stand silent against Trump anymore than the world can afford to have America stand silent against Communism.

I too am angry at our do-nothing party-politicking, self-serving asshole politicians. I abhor our unjust primary election process that utilizes super delegates to protect the power elite. I too want reform in political fundraising, social services, subsidies, EPA regulations, primary education, college student loans, healthcare, our military, environmental policy, monetary policy, banking policy, foreign policy…. EVERYTHING that is, except the very principals that have steered our nations’ moral compass from the days of accepting immigrants at Ellis Island through the social revolution of the 1960’s, till today. I’m proud of our nation and our accomplishments and I believe that our strength is our diversity! That the greater a melting pot we become, the more powerful we grow as an example of democracy and unity for the world. For it’s our nations’ ideology that shapes our future and drives the collective conciseness of the free world.

We have a unique opportunity this year to quiet the angry white minority and unify as nation against the bigotry and fear that underlies the Republican base. Every vote against Trump will serve to reassure the world that America will continue to be on the just side of history.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not believe a vote for Clinton is a vote for radical change. It is a vote for status quo. It is a vote to continue steadily on our current path – but it is without question a far better option than electing a selfishly childish, dangerously inconsistent, pathological lying, media whore narcissist with racist tendencies to the White House.

So I speak to you now, both angry Sanders supporters and moderate Republicans… I get it. You hate her face, her name, her voice, her hair, her StarTrek pant-suit, her everything – but I beg of you to look at her policy. Look at her qualifications. Look at her record and ask yourself who really makes you feel safer? A vindictive man with a pension for stirring up trouble, insulting people and picking fights, or a hard-ass woman whose been remarkably consistent in both her world-view and… well… yes… her unwavering Un-Likability!

With that said, I’m betting America chooses optimism over anger come November. Of course, that’s what most intellectuals thought in Britain on Brexit Day, but fortunately for us we have multiple prime time debates to help us make an informed and painful decision.

The world will be watching with bated breath. Let’s just hope calm and reason prevail that day with America voting in resounding opposition to a man who needs to, “Get out of OUR fucking car!”