From Brasilia-DF-Brazil.
As we said in previous articles, the month of August is emblematic. On August 9 we celebrate the International Day of Indigenous Peoples, on the 14th the world celebrates the end of World War II, with the surrender of Japan.
Likewise, on August 28, 1963, the significant and forceful walk of Martin Luther King on Washington took place, leading more than 250,000 people, mainly black, who protested for social justice, as work, and civil rights. The blacks who followed Luther King, cherished the dream of freedom. They wanted to be seen and treated like human beings. Nothing but the obvious that dumb segregationists insist on not seeing!
Also in August, the Games of the XVII Olympiad took place in Rome. It was in these games that the young black man, Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Clay, in 1942, Lousville-Kentucky, went from a simple star, to the carat of “Sun”, when he won the gold medal, in boxing.
Three days after returning home a hero to America, always with the medal on his chest, thinking that his feet would open doors for him and the other blacks to be treated as human beings, he went with his older brother to a restaurant and there he heard that it would not be served because that was not a place for blacks.
At that time it was common in the United States, signs indicating that the restaurant or cafeteria was only for whites. Today, signs are moved physically, but prejudice against Afro-Americans and Spanish is still there. Whites, Afro-Americans, and Spanish, each one in their one ghetto.
There are several stories to the episode of the medal, but Muhammad Ali himself recounts in his biography that he went to the main bridge in his hometown of Louisville (highly segregated), removed the medal from his chest and threw it into the Ohio River. In interviews, he said:
“I sat down and ordered a cup of coffee and a hot dog. When the attendant replied that they don’t serve blacks, I replied: and I don’t eat blacks, so bring me some coffee and hot dogs! ”
In the United States, blacks were imported from Africa in worse conditions than goods, as care was taken that they did not perish. In the history of African-American blacks, prejudice, exploitation and humiliation are not lacking. It was necessary to have a civil war between the states of the North against those of the South, for the country to initiate a dialogue about whether blacks were human or not. In Brazil, this dialogue took even longer.
Considering the mistaken logic of those who defend representativeness, as the central point of the “speaking place”, only blacks could have protested and fought for the abolition of slavery. Instead, it was the voice of a white man, Abraham Lincoln, who made the difference, from his candidacy in 1860, his election, and his fight against slavery, which lasted until the end of his days.
President Lincoln wanted to be in the speaking place of black people, even though his government, his prestige, and his life itself were in danger. His objective was to defend humanity not blackness. Whenever we foolishly emphasize any other condition, other than the recognition of the highest value, which is the fact of being HUMAN, we reinforce superficial arguments that admit discussions of class and ethnic, all dominated by people and groups that want to share, and conquer.
The Aristotelian critical logic applied to the present case would say: every human being deserves respect, I am human, therefore, I deserve respect. It is not appropriate to discuss whether I am indigenous, “gay”, male, female, black, poor.
Behold, I am human! We were born as human, and we die as human. All the mistakes of the prejudices, we create in the journey of life. What matters more than a human being? Think about it! What matters more than that? In the very last moment, when death comes to you and me, she will not ask the color of your skin, your origin or precedence, nor your religion, nor your bank account.
The 21st century owes this great debt to the truth. We must learn to recognize the smallness and superficiality of the discussions about ideological currents of the left, right and political center. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic is humiliating all of humanity. We have never felt so humiliated by a so tiny enemy!
Whoever was indoctrinated to think ideologically, is saddled like a horse, wears a halter and acts like a donkey, which only goes where its owner’s hand indicates. Go left, donkey! Now go right, donkey! Whoever commands does not even need to speak, he simply pulls the harness to one side or the other, the donkey follows the order.
Differences must be respected because the universe is made of them, and they represent our aesthetic pluralism, but they cannot be considered as determinants of freedom, development or any other right that should be attributed to a human being.
A human being must have all the rights respected, simply because he is human, and not because he is white, black, brown, yellow, indigenous, “gay”, male and female. The speaking place, when it is pointed out as the right of a single person or minority, is an appropriate fallacy to be worshipped by fools and segregationists disguised as libertarians.
If I am human and I see human suffering, it doesn’t matter where I come from, my religion, the color of my skin. There, the person who suffers is a human being worthy of my help in his defense, in defense of his freedom because that is fraternity, solidarity, and empathy. It is the compassion of a human brother for another human brother. This goes beyond representativeness. Much beyond!
There is something deeper than talking about equality when you and I defend those who suffer. With this attitude, we migrate from empty speech and put ourselves in the place of the oppressed one, showing that we think and act with the awareness that we understand that the human being is gender and that the rest is existential aesthetic pluralism.
That is why the white man, Abraham Lincoln, at one point, wanted to join the blacks in defense of their humanity and not their blackness. He saw far beyond skin color, place of origin, social and economic status. Thus, on January 1, 1863, he fulfilled his campaign promise by issuing the Emancipation Act, declaring all slaves, including those from the southern states.
Our speaking place must always be the place of a human who speaks out against injustice, wherever it occurs, against any of our human brothers who make up this watercolor that makes up our aesthetic pluralism.
Every human being deserves respect. I’m a human being. Therefore, I deserve respect! This must be the truth that we must embrace night and day.
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