Is the human false self our destiny? Do we really have a choice of identities or is the True self too weak to overcome our dark side? In short, is fear always going to trump compassion for the majority of humanity? One thing is for certain; no one is going to choose the freedom and peace of mind of a higher self if they don’t know they have a choice. The more we know about the existence of the shadow and how it behaves in relation to the other, the more likely we will be able to awaken our compassion and want to modify our behaviors. The sadness and suffering occasioned by shadow projection is all the more tragic when we realize that it has no basis in Reality, that it is most certainly a behavior of the deluded human mind.
The history of the U.S. tells us that the caste system changes over time which in a way proves the point that Americans choose who is on top and who is on the bottom. In other words, the group that is on the bottom of the caste hierarchy, the outcasts, are going to receive the most frequent shadow projections coming from those above. These behaviors are largely unconscious and must be made conscious if we are to begin to address the insidious and self-destructive acts that weaken the fiber of the American community.
African Americans have usually occupied the lowest caste position. However, in the movement west in areas where there were very few African Americans, the Native Americans became the lowest caste. Throughout U.S. history different immigrant groups as they arrived received the projections of those groups that were more assimilated. The fact that the Irish Americans are no longer on the “caste list” shows that it is possible to move up into the “whites” category into the most “privileged” caste. For African Americans that movement has been more problematic as we have already seen in this chapter.
In P-B, the name of the game is delusion and denial. In America because of our belief in the other, we do indeed have a caste system. “Americans tend to think of the rigid stratifications of caste as a distant notion from feudal Europe or Victorian India. But caste is alive and well in this country…” Fear as the source of energy which creates the illusion of the other also provides the rationale for sorting people into the stratifications underlying the tragic injustices stemming from the projection of the shadow.
Indeed, in the minds of those on the lower rungs of the caste ladder, projecting on those that they see as the other may be conceived as a matter of survival. “Latino immigrants have arrived at a place [Florida] still scarred by the history of a vigilante-enforced caste system and the stereotypes that linger from it. In this context, newcomers—like previous waves of immigrants in the past—may feel pressed to identify with the dominant caste [whites] and distance themselves from blacks, in order to survive.”
To immigrants throughout American history, African-Americans have been seen as the “untouchables,” as the lowest group in the American caste system. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a professor of sociology at Duke, who is Puerto Rican, said, “We immediately recognize whites on top and blacks on the bottom and say, ‘my job is to be anything but black.’”
Ironically, while white Americans have over the years become more accepting of African Americans and less likely to relegate them to the role of the other, each wave of immigrants still perceives them as occupying the lowest rung on the caste ladder. “In fact the Latino respondents, many of them immigrants from Mexico and Central America, actually reported higher negative feelings toward blacks than most native-born whites. Nearly 60 percent reported feeling that few or almost no blacks were hard-working or could be trusted, while only 10 percent of whites held that view.”
The American community continues to harvest on a daily basis the fruits of hate and fear occasioned by the unconscious existence of the pernicious and illusory other. Any identifiable group can be subject to projections of any other group’s false self. But there is always in any society in P-B a group on the bottom. The African American in this country is that group. “In this atmosphere, blacks are the target of the highest number of hate crimes in the United States, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation—higher by a wide margin than any other group of Americans by race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or disability. While blacks make up 12.6 percent of the country’s population, they were 70 percent of the victims of racial hate crimes in 2010.”
To create a sustainable society and one that is not replete with fear, we must find the courage to look at the reality of the devastation caused by belief in the other. Until then the high-sounding vision symbolized by the Liberty Bell and found in our Constitution will continue to sound the hollow ring of hypocrisy.
_______________________________________________________________
References and notes are available for this essay.
Find a much more in-depth discussion in books by Roy Charles Henry:
Where Am I? The First Great Question Concerning the Nature of Reality
Simple Reality: The Key to Serenity and Survival
