Like the dog in the manger or the drunken uncle at Christmas dinner, the truth is not always welcome. Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable. Sometimes the truth is the subject of dispute. And sometimes the truth just has to be spoken.
Take the current conflict in Ukraine as a perfect example of the need for the uncomfortable, unwelcome truth to be spoken. Because, while there is no doubt that the Ukrainian people truly deserve the sympathy of the planet, there is more to the story in Ukraine.
We know that many Ukrainians are noble and incredibly brave in defending their country against the insane aggression initiated by Vladimir Putin. But the fact is that these noble and incredibly brave Ukrainians pointed guns at African residents and prevented them from boarding refugee trains leaving the country. They may not have spoken a lot of English, but they knew how to say “no blacks”.
And the criticism of the racist attitude of the Ukrainians was so muted that it was drowned out by the tidal waves of concern and care that flowed from all over the world.
Consider the outpouring of support and sympathy from around the world, and certainly in the United States, regarding the plight of Ukrainian refugees. Uber now has an app on its site so that you can contribute to the welfare of these brave and noble Ukrainian refugees. GoFundMe accounts are overflowing with cash to support the noble and brave Ukrainians.
But does anyone remember that it was less than a year ago that Haitian refugees, fleeing both natural disaster and the total implosion of anything resembling governmental order, were met at the U.S.-Mexican border with the whips and horses of the U.S. Border Patrol. There was some commentary, but obviously not enough as those Black Haitian refugees were given $50 and forcibly boarded on planes to take them back to the hell on earth that they were trying to escape.
No live coverage on CNN or Fox News when these refugees, now deportees returned to Haiti. Indeed, they were literally forgotten. How are those Haitian refugees faring now?
Does anyone know? Does anyone truly care?
There were no GoFundMe accounts to help the Black Haitians. There were no concerts. And there were certainly no vigorous, stentorian utterances of dismay from the White House or anyplace else to the Black Haitians who arrived in numbers that were miniscule in relation to the millions of white Ukrainians who are now suffering.
Consider that a few years ago brown men, women and children from Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras approached the U.S.-Mexican border. Infants were taken from their mothers and hundreds have never been reunited. These brown men, women and children were treated in a fashion that would have been considered inhuman during the European Middle Ages.
And there were no apps on Uber for the brown men, women and children from Latin America. Just as there were no apps anywhere else for the Haitians or the Black African refugees coming across the Mediterranean on rubber rafts.
But the Ukrainians, blond and blue-eyed as they may be receive a different treatment. Certainly the Euro-American mindset has proven over centuries that the lens in which the world is viewed is first and foremost black and white.
And what was true in 1522 is true in 2022.
The truth may be unwelcome. The truth may be uncomfortable.
But the truth is the truth.