In America today, two things are apparent.

1. The only truth left in this country is what a majority of Americans believe to be true, whether it’s true or not.

2. Party is everything, country be damned. Is it wrong to assume without country there is no Party?

The Democrats hate the Republicans. Republicans hate the Democrats. The fuel feeding this inferno are the allegations filling the internet, echoed by conservative news sites, with material seemingly dreamt up by Hollywood scriptwriters for Halloween films. It’s not a Washington Pizzeria. It’s a front for a child sex ring run by a cabal of Democrats. The election was stolen. There are Jewish space lasers setting wild fires out west. Fake news! Or, the latest offering from HBO Max, where Liberal elite hunt and kill conservatives for sport. The bloody corpse, however, is the definitive truth, once solely based on a set of facts supporting a given conclusion.

Take Texas as an example. Governor Greg Abbott recently signed HB 3979 into law, a bill forbidding the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools across Texas. Several other states have adopted similar bills banning the mentionof a theory conceived some 40 years ago by a trio of scholars citing examples of the systematic racism in our nation. CRT is not the race shaming subject for which our institutions of education are indoctrinating our children with, as many Republican-led states would have you believe. It’s merely a collection of evidence supporting the premise of an existing problem our nation must face. If you have a leaky faucet you don’t stuff your ears full of cotton to keep from hearing the drip, drip, drop of the water. You fix it.

So what exactly is systematic racism? The following examples should give you a pretty good idea of what is meant by this completely misunderstood term. In 2018, statistics from the Department of Labor showed individuals of African-American descent who performed the same duties as their white co-workers earned 38 percent less in wages. In that same year, overall income for African Americans was 42 percent lower than white Americans. A 2019 study by the non-profit group EdBuild revealed schools in predominately white districts were well funded when compared to schools in poor black districts affecting the education and opportunity children have in their paths forward to a better future.

Statistics from The Bureau of Justice showed that African Americans, accounting for only 12 percent of the US population, make up 33 percent of incarcerated Americans, not because of alleged crimes, but because African Americans are denied bail for the same crimes white Americans are released for. Surely you’ve read about the controversy surrounding racial profiling by law enforcement. When groups like Black Lives Matter take to the streets, they are not a lawless band of terrorists intent on death and destruction. They are merely an angry crowd assembled to protest a perceived injustice by exercising a constitutional right to assemble and petition the government for change. If an injustice divides us something must be done to unite us, for we are a nation battling to maintain economic superiority and a military edge in a world ripe with growing competition.

Let us not forget, Europeans first came to America 530 years ago which is 284 years before the birth of this nation. Evidence suggests the first ships to anchor upon these shores bore slaves. There are no Americans today who have ever owned slaves just as there are no African Americans today who were enslaved. But there must indeed be an inherent fear of African Americans illustrated in racist bills, like the one Governor Abbott signed into law, designed to hide the bias a given group of Americans must struggle with every day. Yes. Our history, our very existence as a nation is owed to a band of conquering, murderous thieves, but that was then and this is now. The very ideals captured in the documents of our founding fathers has taken us on a journey in which we strive to truly be one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.

From the birth of our nation to the Emancipation Proclamation delivered by Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican to be elected President of the United States, took nearly the passage of 100 years. Nearly another century would pass before President Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in response to the practice of many Southern states requiring persons of color pass a literacy test before being allowed to vote - a spectacular example of the systematic racism, leading to the development of what we refer to today as Critical Race Theory.

We profess to be a God fearing nation, but I fear our projected image as a Christian-Judea Society is merely an illusion. There is little evidence of said society in America today, a nation whose religious beliefs have been hijacked by the devil, for a devil must surely exist if one immerses oneself in the books of God, describing him as the prince of evil in the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These books also warn us to beware of false gods. They offer words like Thou Shalt Not Lie; Leviticus 19:11.

I’m filled with lyrics of a great songwriter: All I want is the truth. Just gimme some truth.

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Jon's previous stories include:

Sam's Luncheonette
Well, I Suppose
Gimme Shelter
I Remember Your (John Lennon Poem)
Life During War Time
We Now Hold Truth to Be Self-Evident
Social Media
You Can't Always Get Want You Want
Old Friends
Dear Mr. President
Are You an American?