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Traditions That Separate Humanity

Saturday, March 10, 2018

"The light of men is Justice. Quench it not with the contrary winds of oppression and tyranny. The purpose of justice is the appearance of unity among men. The ocean of divine wisdom surgeth within this exalted word, while the books of the world cannot contain its inner significance."

Baha’u’llah1

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Traditions That Separate Humanity

People hold onto to things, hoard traditions, that separate them from the rest of the citizens of the world or of their country. Some of these things, these traditions, are just statues, which were created to commemorate a person. Some of these statues, also, represent an idea that separate the population along color lines. Over the past year, many cities in the southern section of the U.S. have faced protests from white people who do not understand or do not care that these statues represent segregation, degradations, and Jim Crow laws to the black population of those states.

I am white. My opinion is that those statues should be moved, from public displays in parks or the outside of government buildings, to museums. In museums those statues can be displayed along with the reasons they are so offensive to sections of the population. Ever since the problem with the statues came up last year, I have been thinking about it. Today, I read a wonderful article by a talented young man, his name is Masud Olufani and the article is "The Gorilla in the Cage"2. This is the first in a series of articles called " Demeaning the Black Body"3. While this article, "The Gorilla in the Cage", discusses a specific statue and why it is demeaning. One can get an idea of the reason statues of Confederate Civil War "heroes" are offensive.

The people requesting the removal of statues to segregation's, so called, "heroes" are seeking justice. They are seeking justice for their ancestors, their children, themselves, and anyone else who has felt the whip of tyranny because of some false idea of the superiority of one color over another. Traditions that segregate one part of the human race from another are not traditions, they are superstitions.

Footnotes
1  Tablets of Baha’u’llah, pp. 66-67.
2  http://bahaiteachings.org/gorilla-in-the-cage
3  http://bahaiteachings.org/series/demeaning-the-black-body