All our lives we are told how to walk, talk, live, dress, what to eat, when to eat it, etc., etc., to the extent that very few people in America today have any idea of who they are and what they are capable of being. The soul's message is completely buried beneath thick layers of unimportant rules laid in through intimidation. How many people stand up to oppression when they see it, if they can see it through the blinders accepting their own socially-dictated conformity created for them. The clothing we choose to wear is just the tip of the iceberg. We all suffer from it.
Racism is simply the most blatant example.
It seems like white people are getting more self-centered and less concerned about ending racism, with all their protesting about reverse discrimination and attempts to dismantle affirmative action. But I believe there is a genuine glimmer of hope in these angry displays. White people are starting to notice the ways in which they have been victimized by this society, the ways that they have accepted an inner feeling of powerlessness and an obsession with conformity in exchange for a false sense of security and external positions of power. Now that that security is starting to collapse, programs that give more disadvantaged people a hand seem threatening and unreasonable. Eventually, someone is bound to notice that affirmative action does not limit white people's lives anywhere near as much as the social conditions that require a soul to give up his or her authority, that interfere with a person's ability to think for him or herself, and that make it difficult to make choices that come from the heart instead of from fear of poverty or abuse.