"All men are created equal" trumpets the Declaration of Independence. Yet we do not treat 'the others' as equals. We are in dire competition with all for the necessities of life. We have inherent fear that 'the others' will take our possessions, rape our wives, and make slaves of our children. We fear it because it has and is happening everyday in this world. It is part of 'Nature', despite Steven Pinker and his 'Better Angels'. And to maintain power the political and propaganda minded use that fear to support their 'power base'. Divide and keep them ignorant so they don't have any power, don't deserve any power, and that they don't have it or deserve it because the powerful point them to 'the others' as the cause of their powerlessness. Politics pure and simple. Race, class, nationality, education achievement, intelligence, geographical location, religion, sexual appetites, even favorite foods: all are sources of personal pride and self-aggrandizement and degradation of the 'others'. The black race has been enslaved, freed, kept uneducated, separated from whites, hung and set on fire in their own back yards, hated, feared, by educated and uneducated whites since the beginning of history. Yet we fought a political fight for 80 years and a civil war for 4 years, at the cost of 600,000 lives, to stop slavery. Brown vs. School Board and then Dr. King helped equality. We know, deep down, 'All men are equal' but we choose to not believe it. We need to work and educate, and love.
