“History fails to record one single instance in which the white man as a people did good.”
I hardly need to remind any of you that many of us, although not all mercifully, carry the mark of the devil, a ghastly almost translucent epidermis that identifies us as, in the words of the great Malcolm X, “a devil (who) must be destroyed.”
Expanding on that theme shortly before his assassination by a fellow black Muslim Malcolm added, “History fails to record one single instance in which the white man – as a people – did good. They have always been devils; they always will be devils, and they are about to be destroyed.”
No need to list the white devil’s myriad crimes, colonialism, slavery, technology, medicine, space travel etc although the latest charge by the LA Times that “white and affluent drivers are polluting the air breathed by L.A.’s people of color” might be one head-kick too many.
Sammy Roth, a white-devil presenting reporter who writes about climate change for the Times and who would “very much like to see the Dodgers win the World Series again”, begins the piece with the guilt he feels driving on LA’s freeways and his complicity in choking the lungs of the city’s people of colour.
“Angelenos who drive more tend to be exposed to less air pollution — and Angelenos who drive less tend to be exposed to more pollution,” he writes. “It may sound like a paradox, but it’s not. It’s a function of the racism that shaped this city and its suburbs, and continues to influence our daily lives — and a stark reminder of the need for climate solutions that benefit everyone.”
Essentially, and you can read it here ‘cause it ain’t hiding behind the usual paywall, white devils protest the building of highways near their fancy neighbourhoods and therefore, “truck traffic from the ports of L.A. and Long Beach ends up routing through lower-income neighborhoods in Alhambra, a city whose population is overwhelmingly Asian and Latino.”
And who drives more than surfers?
Later in the story, one of his quoted sources mentions that it ain’t a fait accompli that whites are giving POC’s lung cancer, but that “Majority-white Westside neighborhoods, for instance, could also be benefiting from ocean breezes that push pollution into predominantly Black and Latino areas.”
So maybe yeah, maybe no.
Are you LA? Do you feel complicit in these crimes?
Or do you roam the coastline, Palos Verdes through Venice and Topanga and Malibu with nary a care in the world for your POC brothers and sisters?
