“What if we intentionally designed teaching, learning, recreational, and therapeutic experiences to empower and inspire future generations to use their education, access, and proximity to solve problems together. What would that look like and why does it matter?”
The American Caste System is the ideological foundation upon which the Founding Fathers established the United States of America. Interestingly, this system, and the ones that followed, affords advantages to some people and denies access to others. They were created to bestow lifelong cumulative advantages and cumulative disadvantages, in the form of unlimited access to wealth, or restricted access to opportunities.
America's education, healthcare, financial, and judicial systems exist to preserve the status quo. Debating about how to solve problem of with these systems, including disparate treatment based on personhood, can be done by honoring the code of civility, common decency and respectful discourse. These personal and societal attributes must be taught, modeled, practiced, and rewarded.
Why does this matter so much to me personally?
I was born in Birmingham, Alabama and was raised in the 60s and 70s. I grew up in a segregated neighborhood, attended mostly segregated schools, and worshiped in a segregated congregation on Sunday mornings.
If you were a child growing up in the deep south during those years, you know that what happened in Birmingham in the 50s and 60s changed the world. These were turbulent, yet historically triumphant years in the United States. The events that took place in Birmingham pricked the soul of a nation as images of pure hate, in the form of vicious dog and firehoses attacking Civil Rights protesters flashed across American televisions, helping to bend the arch of justice toward equal rights.
“Irise...Urise2! is a personal-centered experience, providing information, news, instruction, and media entertainment, where health and hope, is aligned with healing and history. As a son of Birmingham, I invite you to join me working together to resolve problems others have left for use to solve.”
We are on the precipice of changing the world again as we enter another period of public debate about identity politics and the politics of personhood. Race and religion are familiar weapons in this war for justice. Personhood continues to play out in ways that pit piety and righteousness against righteous indignation and rage. Sadly, this cycle has had a profound and perpetually negative impact on forming a healthy self image or solid family life, neither of which served the interests of the United States when it comes to the negro problem. There is untold, generational damage to the collective psyche of Americans and affected others.
Our path forward is to work together on four interrelated systems that historically and currently preserve the status quo. These are: a) the Education System; b) the Financial System; c) the Healthcare System; d) the Judicial System. Overhauling any one of these would require an investment of time and resources, however, an integrated approach that addresses they all may prove most efficient, especially when we examine the role of the Information and News Industry, and Media Entertainment.
Gaining a historically based, correct understanding about key events and facts will enable us to begin connecting the dots. We must ex-examine what we have been taught through the lens of media literacy, and seek answers to these five key questions. This is the only way we will loosen the chains of complacency and complicity.
We all have been deceived by piles of little "white lies" that devalue black lives. If we don't teach ethics and use a moral compass to point us north, it is only a matter of time before we self-destruct. Today’s schooling must inspire and prepare young people to disrupt cycles of perpetual dis-ease and despair, replacing them with opportunities and options. Dismantling the caste system requires that we wash our brains of American folklore. These systems thrive because of ideology and politics. We all would benefit from knowing the truth, because it is the truth that sets us all free!