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Once upon a time there
was a kingdom of people who pursued happiness. Nothing was more important
to them than being happy. The happier they became, the happier they
wanted to be. The source of the people's happiness was a magic Happiness
Machine. Whenever the people felt unhappy, they would pour their troubled
feelings into the Happiness Machine. The magic machine would melt their
feelings down and purify them. The residue of their troubles became
dross, and the dross was drained away and dumped into a distant part
of the kingdom. The people would take their purified feelings and go
away singing and feeling happy. The years and centuries went by, and
the happy people became happier and happier because of the wonderful
effects of the Happiness Machine. There was only one problem.
Another group of people lived in a distant part of the kingdom where
all the dross was dumped. The dross made them very unhappy. And the
more dross that was dumped, the unhappier they became. Unfortunately,
these poor, unhappy people were not permitted to use the happiness machine,
because the one thing the magic machine could not do was purify its
own dross. The unhappy people complained to the happy people about the problems they had with the dross. But the Happy People ignored
heir complaints. When they were confronted with the terrible results
of their happiness, these Happy People simply took their troubled feelings
to the Happiness Machine and it made them happy again. It was easy to
believe that it was not the dross of their own troubles that made other
people unhappy. Rather, they convinced themselves that the unhappy people
were just incurably unhappy and that they had nobody but themselves
to blame for their unhappiness. It was not long before
the unhappy people began to protest more insistently about their situation.
They organized marches and demonstrations. They demanded that the dross
be removed from their part of the kingdom. And they demanded a fair
share of happiness for their people. But the happy people turned a deaf
ear to their protests, which only served to make the unhappy people
angrier, and they protested all the more. Finally, the happy people
could no longer ignore the protests. They used force to put down the
protesters, and arrested and jailed the leaders. They passed laws and
organized military force to control the unhappy people. Many of the
unhappy people were killed. This only made the others angrier and more
unhappy. They began to plot and plan how they could destroy the Happiness
Machine. The conflict and tension
caused a severe drain on the Happiness Machine. The conflict and tension
caused a severe drain on the Happy People's happiness. In addition,
to everything else, many of them were becoming uneasy about the way
the unhappy people were being treated. All these new troubles made the
Happiness Machine work even harder, and consequently, even more dross
was produced. They had to build an even bigger and better Happiness
Machine to take care of the happiness needs of the people; consequently,
the dross was piled higher and higher and spread farther and farther
into other parts of the kingdom, which made more and more people unhappy
and angry. It was not long before the unhappy people were in a constant
state of rebellion. Then a new and even greater
danger arose. The Happiness Machine became so large and productive that
there was no place on Earth left to put the dross. The piles of dross
crept closer and closer to the homes of the happy people and to the
place where the Happiness Machine was operating. Now the Happy People
were threatened not only by the rebellion of the unhappy people, but
also by their own Happiness Machine. The new danger caused even greater internal conflict and tension among the happy people. Some wanted to build an even bigger Happiness Machine in order to deal with the crisis they were facing. Others began to see that the Happiness Machine was not the solution to their problems, but the cause. They wanted to reduce the size of the machine, or even dismantle it altogether. Some even began to wish that they could join together with the unhappy people to find solutions to the problem and build a new society together. (Dismantling Racism : The Continuing Challenge to White America, by Joseph R. Barndt). |
