On Tuesday, Americans went to the polls. We cast our votes. One side won, the other didn't. Now there are protests. People waving signs a nine-year old might write, screaming unimaginative slurs and swearing because the vocabulary just isn't big enough to encompass emotion.
Virtually all of it is organized and promoted by Moveon or other Soros fronts. This is a job for most of these people. They get word there's something on. They get dressed. They go out and make a bunch of noise and create problems for law enforcement and fellow citizens. At the end of it, they get a check. It's not a true movement. It's pretend.
That's the overarching theme. Underlying that, mixed in with the overt "we hate the guy who got elected" childishness, are "Black Lives Matter" and other outright racist signs.
Oops. I'm not supposed to say that. I'm white, and a woman, and over a certain age (39) so I can't call anyone "racist" - even if it fits.
On the other side, they can say I'm racist, a bigot, and all the rest, even though they don't know me. They don't know what I think, what I believe or what's in my heart. Just because I don't hold exactly the same view about things they do, I'm a... something.
What these people don't realize is: This country, because of generations of discriminatory laws, attitudes and behaviors, has deep wounds. The problem with deep wounds is that if you dig at a them, pick at the edges and rip at the scab, the wound can't heal. And that's what these people are doing.
By putting black lives above other lives, saying they're more important than brown lives or red lives or white lives, they're diminishing - discriminating against - those other lives.
By demanding that I, and other Caucasian people feel guilty because of a chance of birth, is plain stupid. I didn't choose to be white. It just happened.
In the place where I grew up, I'll admit it wasn't diverse, but is that my fault? Should I feel guilt because my parents bought their house in a town that was predominately white?
As it happened, my family wasn't much different than the families of my peers - except for the family of my Chinese friend who lived in one of the nicer neighborhoods in town, and Wilt Chamberlain who lived in a house that looked down on the small, three bedroom, one bathroom house my family lived in. We were middle class / borderline poor - one car, lots of casseroles and cheap meat, tent camping trips were the vacation of our dreams and, among that, I was raised to believe that I have to make and take opportunities that present themselves.
When I was fifteen, I tried to talk to my dad about planning for college. He looked me in the eye and said, "We can't afford it. If you want to go to college, you have to work through it." The door was closed because I was fifteen. I wasn't driven, so I looked for other options. I took typing classes. Then I went to junior college and took bookkeeping classes. I didn't get a leg up or special treatment. I wasn't admitted to the typing class because I was white. In fact, two of my classmates were black. I certainly didn't look around and pin the blame on someone else, not even of a different race. It was my situation, my problem, and it was up to me to figure it out, so I did. Should I feel guilty for that?
This is what I don't understand. Why are these people out there, marching, blocking traffic and sidewalks, interrupting the lives of other people just trying to go about their own business?
Why do they demand that I and other people who don't happen to be black, feel guilty for a chance of genetics?
If these people really want equality, as they say they do, why do they keep picking at the wound of differences? Why don't they stop pointing out that not everyone is the same? At the end of the day, what difference does it make? Who cares what color skin someone happens to have?
Martin Luther King said it best:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character"
Why can't these people strive for that ideal and just go home?
Can someone enlighten me, please?
Best~
Philippa
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