Birth of a Nation -or- The Ku Klux Klan

The International Institute for Dream Research form to submit a dream to the dream bank does not include "race" as a category, however since the very beginning in 1996 many who have sent in their dreams, write in "caucasian" in the "nationality" category. In "The Multicolor Imagination: "Race", Color, and the Unconscious", Michael Vannoy Adams provides a dream from a "white" man, which suggests the influence of the skin color metaphor on our dreams. Here is the dream Adams reports; 

"My son and I are in New York City. There's a Ku Klux Klan rally on the steps of a church. Whites (and one black) are standing arms folded, on the steps. They are holding signs and firebrands. Then my son and I are inside the church. We have to change clothes. At some point, I realize that there could be some ugly, dangerous incident-say, a bombing of the church in retaliation for the rally. I urge my son to get dressed quickly." 

White Supremacy and Racism -or- White Man's Burden in the Global Village 

White supremacy is the belief that whites are superior to all other races. In America it is the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations that are associated to the white supremist movement. The 1915 Hollywood dream factory film "Birth of a Nation" glorified and mythologized the racism of the Ku Klux Klan. "White Man's Burden" is featured in the Field Note "Killers of the Dream".

Adams asks; "What would we do without "race" or color as an issue not only in America but also in Europe, in Africa and other countries? Can we imagine a discourse that eskews "black" and "white" categories? Do not those categories, even when we apply them for positive purposes, with the best of intentions simply reiterate and reinforce the very opposition that reduces the problem in the first place?"

 

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