Breaking The Chains
by James A. Landrith, Jr.
August/September 2003
Once again, California is in the midst of firestorm with regard to that favorite of American controversies – “race.” As a man who can check more than one “racial” classification box, an “interracially” married husband and father of two “multiracial” children, I can say without reservation that “racial” classifications, born by the early government of this nation to further the hideous enterprise of slavery, are an evil aberration. They eat at the soul of person. They force people to abandon the sanctity of the individual in favor of group-think, leaving in its wake an unhealthy ‘us vs. them’ mindset based solely on arbitrary, government created boxes.
The alternative to abandoning this historically wretched practice, is to keep “boxing in” our children based on a completely unscientific program of government enforced mental segregation, modeled on the desires of slavers and subjugation of human beings for profit. Contrary to the lies being spread by those in favor of these classifications, they were not created for the purpose of tracking discrimination or unscientific methods of “eyeball” classifying for medical purposes. Their origins lay in much more horrendous designs. Through their support of slavery era “racial” classification schemes, opponents of Proposition 54 are continuing the work of those who engaged in the disgusting trafficking of human beings for profit. Do not be deceived; these classifications were not created for civil rights purposes. Their continued existence is a disturbing reminder of a period in American history that shames her still today.
Many despicable individuals have used these classification schemes over the years in their campaigns of “racial” intolerance and terror. One of the worst being Walter Plecker of Virginia who used “racial” classifications to persecute and disenfranchise “multiracial” individuals all over the state for years. Plecker even attempted to spread his disgusting campaign of terror into other states via letters and intimidation. Without these classifications, his campaign of harassment and intimidation would not have been possible. These categories, used to enforce slavery laws, disgusting anti-miscegenation laws, the one-drop rule, and the internment of Americans of Japanese descent were not created for the greater good of humanity. As someone who can check more than one box on government forms that collect “racial” data I am forever aware of their origins. I can’t escape the thought that these boxes were used to segregate and persecute some of my own ancestors. Those opposed to scrapping the boxes are lying when they assert otherwise. This last vestige of our evil slavery heritage must die a necessary death. It is time to break with the past and let this evil go.
“Racism” isn’t ingrained or instinctive. It is learned. As such, it can be unlearned, and better yet, never taught via these classifications, which are forced on the very youngest of our citizens at the time, they are most vulnerable to such programming – elementary school. The proponents of such unscientific classification schemes reduce a person to the status of a mere serf at the mercy of a myriad different special interests who have no real interest in the person’s well-being, only in how including that individual in their number increases their ability to manipulate social and political will. It is an offense to free will and justice to force such a mindset on children via the State. Those who witnessed the recent efforts to reform Census classifications to reflect the changing demographics due to the rise in “interracial” marriage and “multiracial” births since the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision, know exactly to what I am speaking. The world has changed and is continuing to change, contrary to the wishes of those who want to maintain these slavery relic classifications. Proposition 54 will succeed and it will spread to other states until it eventually achieves critical mass forcing a much needed change on the national level. Further, it will awaken those arrogant elites who live to force the one-drop rule and other “racialist” designs on their fellow Americans, be they “white” supremacists on the right or “racialist” ethnicity advocacy groups on the left. The paradigm has shifted and it is time to shed this last vestige of American slavery.
If we truly wish to defeat “racism” we must first deal with the “race”-think born of such classification schemes. In order to further that goal, we must abandon yet another vestige of our pitiful slavery heritage – “racial” classifications.
James Landrith is the notorious editor and publisher of The Multiracial Activist and The Abolitionist Examiner, two cyber-rags dedicated to freedom from oppressive racial categorization. Landrith can be reached by email at: editor@multiracial.com or at his personal website/blog.
Reprinted by:
- Asian Enterprise
- ChronWatch
- Enter Stage Right
- Liberty For All
- NashvilleDigest
- The Libertarian Enterprise
Copyright © 2003 The Multiracial Activist. All rights reserved.
It occurs to me that in order to break ANY chain, you need to understand where the chain was forged to begin with, eh?
Children are initially ‘color blind,’ and will not make that kind of distinction. I know this, because I lived with a family of Negroes/ Blacks when I was about 10 years of age, or so. My perceptions didn’t contain any aspect of color.
Now granted, I lived north of the M/D line, and I didn’t have any preconceptions of the matter of race. Maybe kids elsewhere did?
I will say that my father expressed some less than honorable epithets regarding ‘blacks’ when I was still in my formative years, and even after I had lived with the family I was boarded with for a summer.
To this day, I harbor no degree of animosity against anyone whom has done no harm to me. Just because my Dad was a ‘closet’ racist doesn’t mean that I am one as well.
My Mother expressed a disgust concerning lesbians, several times.
What do I care? I’m not a woman.
A woman loving another woman has never threatened me.
A man loving another man has never bothered me either.
What does that make me?
In all of this, I have come through it all, and have seen the truth of it, even if my parents have not: You must be what you are, even in the face of the worst of adversity, and nature demands that if you desire to survive, you must fight to live and carry on, or you will die.
Only the strong survive.
Only the weak will threaten the rest of us, because they perceive their own weaknesses.
That’s all I have to contribute for now, eh?
In the end, there can be only the one … thing: The truth.
In Liberty,
E.J. Totty
Sunday, September 7, 2003
Dear Mr. Landrith,
Thank you for an excellent article! Only the bureaucracy seems willing and eager to continue this nonsense, but as they are not producers, they need forms of any kind for their nutty little endeavors. What a waste of manpower.
For liberty,
Trude Blomsoy
Coos Bay, OR.
September 15, 2003 at 4:39 pm
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 22:02:59 -0400
From: P. Henty
Subject: Breaking the Chains at Liberty For All
Dear Sir:
I have to compliment you on a most excellent article. I have thought the ideas you wrote about for many years and occasionally voiced them to others. This is the first time I have read them articulated so clearly. I still remember as a child facing a form in a government school where I was asked to fill in the appropriate racial circle. I can remember pondering what this question had to do with the test, what it might mean if I shaded various circles, and what the choice “other” was all about. I have met perhaps only a handful of people who understand what you wrote. Thank you for your efforts.
Sincerely,
P. Henty
I like your idea.
We are all humanbeings.
G. Doerner
9/24/2003 20:30:00