I've been reading three books at once. George Orwell's 1984, Tim Wise's White Like Me, and Charles C. Mann's 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. I would say all three have obvious links to race, class, and systems of government. Orwell writes a dystopian novel depicting the way things could have gone, and has themes such as government control, thought control, mindless blind belief that things could never be any other way, etc. Mann's book is giving the history of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada an upgrade, with new data pouring in, most specifically to South and Central America, rivaling the stereotypical beliefs that the Europeans were superior in technology, religion--pretty much whatever you want to name, reasons why the Europeans were able to conquer (disease), as well as proving that the "New World" was really the "Older-World-Than-That-Of-The-Europeans". Wise writes explicitly about ignored racial problems in a world where plenty believe there is no such thing as racism anymore, specifically speaking about African Americans in America. He tells stories throughout his entire life (which was not glamorous, as he came from a very low-income dysfunctional family), focusing on how in every situation his "race" (more politically correct: ethnicity) hoists him up to be successful, and that white people need to first of all become aware of their privilege, and then take accountability for it.
I just wish we could all get the ideology out of our brains that being successful is "owed to us", the romantic notion that "we are all equal and have the same chance at success", that nothing can change, and that individuality is somehow more evolved than the collective -- despite the whole "there is no 'I' in team" thing. It's as though the world is too big, systems of government too powerful, things unchangeable.
"But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. You had to cling on to that. When you put it in words it sounded reasonable: it was when you looked at the human beings passing you on the pavement that it became an act of faith" (Orwell 89).
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