Don't take the blue pill

[CHIMO]

In the film The Matrix, Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne) offers Neo (Keanu Reeves) a stark choice. He can either gain a greater understanding of the complex forces that comprise the world in which he lives; or he can continue in a state of imperilled ignorance as though they do not exist. "You take the blue pill and the story ends," promises Morpheus. "You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

As the trial of 80-year-old Edgar Ray Killen begins today, the US will have to decide which pill it wants to swallow. Killen is charged with murdering three young civil rights workers - James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner - more than 40 years ago in the small town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. He will be tried by his peers but judged by history. He will be one of a slew of ageing white men that has been paraded down history's perp walk of shame - complete with orange jumpsuits and handcuffs - in recent times. Since 1989, 23 murders have been re-examined in the south resulting in 27 arrests, 21 convictions, two acquittals and one mistrial, according to Mark Potok of the Intelligence Project, a branch of the Southern Poverty Law Centre based in Montgomery, Alabama.

Take the blue pill and the story ends with the cases of these men and the vile acts of which they are accused. The ramifications of their guilt or innocence do not resonate beyond their own borders. Act as if the past has no legacy and the present has no consequences, and you really can believe whatever you want to believe. Take the red pill and you are forced to recognise that now is not its own abstract point in time - it is shaped by what has gone before, and will shape what comes after. The rabbit hole of America's racist history goes deep. Follow it far enough and it will take you from death row all the way to the voting booths of Florida

Which brings us back to the courthouse in Philadelphia, Mississippi. For even as trials such as this seek to cure one symptom of racist infection, the virus mutates into an even more hardy strain. Killen may end up behind bars, but the logic and the system that produced him and made him infamous stills remain free. The blue pill may be sugar-coated, making it easier to swallow. But boy, can it make you sick.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1505271,00.html

[yurbud]

1. can't the trial be a good thing AND we still have other racial injustice?

Hillbilly Hitler art:



Blog:

[CHIMO]

2. I Would

Think so. It seemed to me from the article that the trial will not settle the issue.