AMERICAN FRICTIONS

AMERICAN FRICTIONS Friction alters or affects all parties. The scrubber and the scrubbed are all mutually affected by its activity, though maybe not beneficially, nor equally; but, touched they all are. People also affect each other. This is true for groups of people as well as for individuals. That affect may be all or either of these six factors: physical, spiritual, mental, cultural, political, economic. But undeniable. I have said all of that, to say this: Like "friction," above, in the same sense that descendants of certain Western European nations have claimed to have "civilized" certain Africans, in or by their popular and religious cultures, who were forced to become their chattel slaves, and servants for centuries; the same means were among those used by these same enslaved Africans' descendants to humanize the whites. We may lay claim to having commensurately "humanized" the European enslavers' descendants. The "whites" that were decocted from the uniquely American racial cauldron were just as unavoidably transformed internally as were the "blacks" who were also decocted externally by American synthesis. The blacks are as "American" as the whites; the whites as blacks. Both are byproducts of the same process. Both were created within the same American racial cauldron. In addition to basal elements of the blacks and whites, there are other people, other trace elements. These have been added spice and texture to the American admixture. They were/are Indigenes (Indians), Asians, Central Americans. Now, most prominently, descendants of Eastern Europeans, like President-Elect, Donald Trump, of German extraction, and other migrants, have flavored indeed, have greatly enriched our American formulation. "Melting Pot" is the usual American metaphor. I prefer cauldron, being a William Shakespeare aficionado, i.e. "Double. Double toil and trouble ; fire burn and cauldron bubble." "MacBeth's" witches cant. Friction is a natural force as are we. Depending upon the character of the mated-matter, as well as its innately natural force, friction when adduced with other forces doubly, or in combinations with other natural forces, may: propel,  heat, ignite, sharpen, melt, kill, smooth, fuse, burn, or create anew. All of these outcomes of friction's emergent forms can be identified in American history, society, and life. http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/science/continuum/Pages/friction.aspx Embrace your American frictions!