The real victims of discrimination are those who hear and heed the slurs. Discrimination is really aimed at people who live in fear of those whom they believe are different from themselves. Many of these targeted people tend to be poorer, under educated and generally don’t vote, because the issues which are at stake concern problems about which they know little and in which they are not interested. Too many of them feel themselves to be victims of people in power, and they feel isolated and lost.
Slurs and distortions, whether directed at gays, blacks, immigrants, abortions, gun control, or other issues seem to narrow their choices to black or white, good or evil, intelligence or stupidity. Worse yet, if the slurs and distortions come from someone in power or authority, then those lost and isolated people feel they can become part of a team, and that they have been called to rally around a great cause. Now they not only "understand" these complex issues, they are led to believe they are the last hope of mankind. The fate of the world seems to await their response. Their president and their God now "need" them, and they will obey.
Unfortunately for them, once they have voted, they are no longer needed and slide away back into the great gray void of reality and never know for whom or for what they really voted. The flag and the bible are there to die for and a real patriot would never ask what comes after glory.
© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
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