A black man toils in a field under the sweltering sun.  He is a slave in every sense of the word: he was taken by force from his family and forced into a life of hard physical labor for no pay.  He is given little food and even less water.  He is beaten on a regular basis.

This is not a scene from an 1805 plantation in the Deep South.  This is happening now, in 2020, in some countries in Africa, and in the Islamic world.

We are told, lectured even, that the scenes of mass chaos and violence in our streets are justified because of our past.  Yet per the Global Slavery Index, an estimated 40.3 million human beings are enslaved around the planet, right now.  Where are the protests for them? Don't their lives matter?

"Black Lives Matter" is the slogan, the mantra, that the media, Hollywood, and all their ilk have adopted with an almost religious fervor.  Men and women who have the temerity to call themselves journalists are spewing lies and fairy tales about black men being hunted in the streets by the police.  The sad fact is that there is a horrifying epidemic of black men being gunned down and stabbed in the streets, but the perpetrators are not the police.   They are other black men.  On any given weekend in Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, and across the nation, black men are killing each other over drugs, gang territory, and other such worthless pursuits.  What does BLM have to say about those killings?  They say nothing, of course.  Instead, they demand that there be a reduced police presence in minority neighborhoods.

Those of us who are still in possession of our sanity read with horror the news of  David Dorn's slaying by looters in St. Louis, and of the murder of Dave Patrick Underwood in Oakland.   They were both black men.  They were killed for nothing, by senseless mobs.  Where are their protests?

Where is the widespread outrage over the minority owned businesses that have been vandalized, looted, and burned to the ground?  Those businesses aren't coming back.  As the owners and employees watched their stores go up in flames, they were also watching their livelihoods burn.  The people who live in those neighborhoods are also losing places to shop, eat and congregate.  The mobs burn poor neighborhoods, and then BLM and their sycophants will have the gall to complain about "food deserts", and how there aren't any stores in low-income areas.

It is distressing to see how such a large swath of America has lost its perspective.  When a black person throws a brick through a store window and steals a pair of Nikes, our media and politicians are quick to explain that this is entirely moral because of "oppression" and "injustice".  Will those thieves and their apologists ever stop to think about where those shoes came from in the first place?  Because while they are screaming about being "oppressed", a poor Chinese woman in a sweatshop is busily sewing those shoes and thousands of identical pairs for 30 cents an hour.  Who is the real victim here?  

It is also amazing to witness the mass amnesia that has gripped the country.  The media and radical leftists are quick to blame the violence in our streets on Antifa.  Yes, Antifa is certainly responsible for some of the mayhem.  But are they willingly closing their eyes to the history of the BLM movement?  For years, every time and place this group gets together, it devolves into chaos.  Has the entire country forgotten about the riots in Ferguson and Baltimore?  How about the Dallas police officers who were executed in the street?  Peaceful protestors, indeed.

The rioters throng the streets claiming oppression and inequality.  They bandy about the phrase "white privilege".  The fact of the matter is, yes, whites in this country are privileged, and so is everyone else.  We live in splendor, surrounded by creature comforts, almost unknown by large swaths of the world.  To those screaming and whining about being "oppressed", why don't you visit the favelas of Brazil, or the slums of Bangladesh, or tour Sudan or Somalia or North Korea? When you return, please, tell the rest of us all about "oppression" in this country.

America is "racist" and "bigoted", as our ruling class likes to opine.  Yet this attitude flies in the face of reality.  If America is truly the racist hellscape that the elites claim it is, why do millions of Hispanics attempt to flee here from Central America every year?  Why do millions of others (mostly non-white) legally migrate to this country?  Neither of those are easy prospects.  The Nicaraguan who travels here on foot is literally taking his life into his hands.  The Ethiopian who legally migrates here probably spent years working his way through the system.  Why would either of them put in the effort if the place they are coming to is going to be bigoted and prejudiced against him?

It is truly a sad day when millions around the world can recognize the splendor and beauty of America, yet so many of her citizens are willfully turning a blind eye to what she has to offer.

Image credit: Pixabay public domain