Who sets the time?

We live in a society where the dominant culture refuses to look back. The nation fears the reality that the present is the past’s creation due to feeling that such an acknowledgement would force an accountability and responsibility burden upon the present masses. The masses hence resist baring witness to truth in order to prevent the moral challenge to their character. While the masses enjoy fruits from the past, which are not of their individual creation, they argue exemption from any past liabilities due to not having personally created them.

I have always been amazed by the psychological ploy of setting the time on one's alarm clock ahead of the actual time, so that when the alarm sounds, one can fool themselves into believing that they are gaining more time. The truth is that time has not really changed in such a case, rather, people simply distort their perception of time for psychological gain and the reward of extra time to sleep, which is simply a gimmick distortion of temporal reality. In the same way, people distort the reality of the past's influence upon the present as a psychological strategy for holding onto benefits from the past while denying the liabilities. It’s all a psychological game of denial and cognitive dissonance to perpetuate a pleasure via distorting ones perception of truth and reality.

The dominant white culture has been very successful at framing and defining the present in a way that is most conducive to their interest. They have set the clocks time to show 5:00 AM, when the true time is 4:30 AM. When the alarm sounds at 4:30, all those who are on real time are disturbed by those who need to fool themselves into believing they are gaining an extra 30 minutes of sleep. When those on real time complain about the distortion, they are put down by those who are in control of the clock and condemned as the ones who not keeping pace with their working definition of time that is to their psychological benefit, while ignoring that those on real time are loosing a half hours sleep.

Such is simply the benefits of the incumbency of power, which whites posses. Those with power take the advantage of defining reality for all the rest, based upon an interpretation, if not distortion, that promotes their group interest. It must be noted the self-interest is the highest value of most humans and when truth is not conducive to human self-interest, truth is suppressed. Some people are on real-time and real-truth, while other people operate on distorted-time and distorted-truth due to a psychological need of distortion to forward their self interest and or pleasures.

The vast majority of humans are guided by self-interest and everything that humans do is ultimately done from selfishness. Sometimes truth coincides with selfish interest and sometimes it does not. In either case, selfish interest is the goal and truth or deceit is simply the means to the end. In the case of America, which is dominated by whites politically and economically, truth is distorted via omission, because the atrocities of the past are on record and cannot be lied about. Thus, the dominant culture just won’t talk about it or integrate it cognitive analysis as a potential cause of the effects of the present.

That having been said, such sentiment from the dominant culture is and should be expected, given empirical facts. However, the most ominous sign is that the truncating of history, as a tool for understanding the present, has spread to large segments of recent immigrant groups. Asians and Hispanics and have also become indoctrinated in the distortion, as well as a small percent of African Americans who politically align with conservative ideology. Although this is an ominous setback for the truism that the present is the creation of the past, and the black struggle for equality, it is not surprising as human nature compels many to covet favor and hence promotion from those with power who have framed and distorted reality. Thus, in order to get ahead seek to please those in power
with the hope of promotion and reward.

I have listened to far too many Hispanics, Asians and even a growing number of blacks; disrespect the history of black people and slavery in this nation, in regards to its impact upon the present. The growth of Hispanics and Asians has invoked the popular use of the term “minority” as a generic label of people of color that creates the impression that all minorities face or have faced the same resistance to progress from the dominant white culture. The truth is that people of color are not monolithic in experience. There have been and is a different degree of resistance and impediments from the dominant culture based upon the particularities of the minority group. African Americans suffered the “Peculiar Institution” that is endemic to the African American experience and not other minorities here. This gets lost upon the analysis of present reality as the “shared” experience now defines the minority experience, truncating unique degree of the black condition.

What would happen if patients being entered into a hospital were no longer classified by their particular illness and symptoms, but by a generic label such as “Sick”, that all patients shared? Thus, when treating the problems of the “Sick” there is a treatment for the universally shared symptoms, but no treatment for symptoms not universally shared in degree or kind. Hence, those who are “Sick” in a unique way receive little benefit from the generalized treatment and there condition eventually worsens and or mutates. African Americans are patients who are ill from a disease different in degree and kind from that of other minorities and white immigrants to America. This is not to suggest that these minorities and white immigrants were not oppressed and discriminated against, it is to suggest that there was a difference in degree and or kind from that of blacks. Any group that was oppressed to the degree and kind as blacks would be in the exact same situation as blacks today, lest we assume that others are somehow superior and rose while black inferiority has kept them down.

The black struggle in America is far too often normalized as the “typical” struggle of new arrivals to this land, such as the Irish, Italians, Polish of Europe and the recent Hispanic and Asian immigrants. It is noted that all these people faced discrimination and obstacles, yet, they did not complain, worked hard and rose above it. Blacks, on the other hand, are said to have been held back by our propensity to complain, blame and having a poor work ethic. Thus, the theme here is the supposition that discrimination was universal, as an impediment to all groups, but what has kept black people down is behavior and thinking endemic to black people that leads us to complain, blame and harbor laziness. In other words, black humanity is somehow different and or inferior from these other groups and this is why blacks have not risen as the others have. Furthermore, blacks are not recent immigrants. The average black person is at least a 10th generation American and should have the wealth of ten or more generation. Most other minorities in America are on average 2nd generation Americans.

In conclusion, I think that the transference of denial from the dominant culture, in regards to the past, is being conditioned and programmed into the minds of immigrants and non black minorities. The consequence is a growing disrespect for blacks and the black condition in America, as more and more people are seeing it less in its historical context of cause and effect and actions and reaction. Instead, when the continuum of the past is dismissed, it leaves the root cause and origin of the problem to be blacks. In other words, the socioeconomic racial gaps and problem are then seen as having no link to the past, but rather, black pathologies rooted in our genetics and culture.