(Photo Courtesy of Laurent Gillieron/EPA)
The proper cure for racial oppression works just as a medicine for any other malady; it must be applied carefully and in set amounts. But first, I must announce that racial oppression is not the disease but the symptom of racism, which then leads to racial oppression. Racism is the precursor, spreading from fear of the unknown and different. Fears of ghastly people with harsh tongues, strangely colored skin, and barbarous ways of life. Of course, this illness is not only active from one group to the other but a complex web of what a particular culture deems different and, therefore, incorrect.
The illness first must have a suitable host, one unaccustomed to tolerance and set in isolation from others through ideals. Once the disease has had sufficient time to incubate, its symptoms arrive. The aforementioned symptoms of racial oppression only come into effect when the host comes into contact with a different, and therefore intolerable race or people. Then the symptoms will go into action. The host carrying the illness will then have a lack of ability to see the new group as deserving of rights and/or equal to the host. The host will then exploit the new group as a resource, oppressing them. Seeing new people as un-human leads into the direction of seeing them as a resource or subservient class of life, intelligent enough to perform menial tasks but not intelligent enough to be considered a person.
The cures to the base disease are simplistic, as it is the reverse of what causes it. So if a lack of knowledge of other people causes the disease, the cure is for the host to be educated of the different peoples’ way of life and mannerisms. Another cause is isolation, which is the direct cause of a lack of knowledge of things outside the isolated entity. The cure is similar, simply to allow the would-be hosts to interact with the other races; therefore, the potential host would be essentially immunized from the illness.
The difficulty comes from when the illness has been well established and has proliferated to a point where a simple reversion does nothing. To then cure the disease after it has shown symptoms, must be done with a deft hand, and excruciatingly slowly as to not aggravate the illness more. The cure must start with an immune person, to then spread immunity just as the disease spreads itself. It must begin with questions; what kind of people are these really? How different are they from us? Are they different only because we treat them differently? Etc. Then, must come answers, answers that show that the illness is irrational and untruthful. These answers and the true understanding of them are the cure. Many will be resistant, but the sickness only hurts everyone, including the host. Once there are answers, and the remedy is made, it must be distributed. Later, a vaccine should be created to prevent the spores of illness from affecting the susceptible. It must be given to the young, fed from books, essays, conversations, debates, and words. And better if the women who hath feasted on the divine words of truth to give their milk untainted to the next generation.
Once the populace is immunized, and the children can play without the weight of feverous oppression, the illness can be declared cured along with its symptoms eradicated. From infection to incubation to symptoms, the only cure is the sweet apple of truth from a tree once called “Forbidden.” There will be ridicule, fear, pain, and fevers, but for the sake of the children of the future, we must care for our bodies as temples in which they will reside.