My political tendencies lean toward the liberal side, I will admit. I hate to label myself that way but, realistically, we live in a world where we feel better about ourselves if we can neatly compartmentalize each other so we know where we stand. So, to make it easy, I will fly the liberal flag. I work in a small place and in this place I work with a lot of other liberals. We get paid very little to do a lot for people most of society would rather not even think about. In the midst of all this there are two very staunch conservatives. How they find themselves here, I cannot begin to understand.
Both are young, Christian and white. Both are married. One has a new family. One just found out she is expecting. Both are active in their churches. I actually like these women very much. They are funny and smart and know their jobs well. But they are also a constant source of aggravation to me when it comes to politics. I find myself having to bite my tongue and shut my mouth.
The recent event in Ferguson, MO have been particularly upsetting for me. I have biracial family members and the unrest and horrible violence is just bad. The circumstances under which Michael Brown was shot happen all too often and the heated and hateful debate of who was right and why he was shot and who or what he was just go on ad nauseum. One of the women in the office is married to a police officer and she is very vocal about how thankless a job that is. I have no doubt about that. I have friends on the force. But I also know that not all cops use their heads in a crisis and not all cops think before they act. I have also known some cops to be incredibly racist. Most are good, decent people who want to help. Some are not.
There are no easy answers. It's not as easy as telling young black men to simply stop arguing with police because, let's be honest, police are often wrong. It's not as easy as telling us all to respect authority because blatant respect is hollow and meaningless. Respect has to be earned. Maybe the trick is to simply stop talking about race at all. Stop describing people by their color. I am a woman, not a white woman. You are a man, not a black man. We are simply human beings with light or dark skin pigment. Why should that make us so different? Why should that make us hate one another? Why should that make us kill one another?
I hope that in my lifetime mother's can stop teaching their children to fear police officers because their children's skin is dark. I pray it will...
Showing posts with label hatred. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hatred. Show all posts
Monday, August 18, 2014
Friday, December 14, 2012
The Innocents...
I'm stunned, sitting here tonight, in the wake of yet another gun related mass shooting in the US. Oh, and I'm tired too. I cannot feel the shock that the news media wants us to feel about this shooting. I can't tell you how sad that makes me feel. The idea that we have had so many of these horrific incidents that I can no longer feel the mind numbing shock when it happens.
While my heart aches thinking of those families who cannot and never will again tuck their children into bed on this night, what I feel most of all, is anger. An intense, deep, burning anger.
Yes, I am angry at the young disillusioned man who killed his father and then went to the school where his mother worked to kill her and her kindergarten class. I am so angry at his actions. We can look at his actions and those of others who've gone on shooting rampages and soothe ourselves by saying, "Surely, he was mentally ill." One in four people in the US have a mental health diagnosis. So, look around kiddos...that might be the person standing next to you. Now I work with people who have severe and persistent mental illness and, to be honest, none of them illicit fear in me. Not a one. So while the shooter or shooters in these cases may have a mental health diagnosis, let's be real here...that unto itself is not the reason those innocent children or those movie goers or those high school kids or those shoppers at the mall or those worshippers at the temple are dead now. I would bet good money that the reason those people are dead now is that at some point those who pulled the trigger all were made to feel insignificant, isolated, ridiculed, strange, and unloved.
I am angry tonight at this grand country of ours. The USA - the land of opportunity for so many - has, over the course of several years now, become a land of fear. We fear getting our "stuff" stolen. We fear someone "attacking" us, breaking in, blowing us up, harming us or our loved ones. And we fear this because we are fed an almost constant stream of news about how horrible it is outside our own four walls and how there are very, very bad people out there who will absolutely hurt us. Neighbors do not even bother to get to know neighbors anymore because, after all, you can never be sure who that neighbor might be. We have been told to identify the strangers and to not tolerate them in any way. Our children learn this from us and so, from a young age, those who are not popular, not "in" or who are different in any way are made to feel that difference in no uncertain terms. We like to point them out and keep them at bay just in case they might really be who we think they are. Never mind we never actually take the time to hear their stories or understand what they are all about. How did we allow ourselves to become so marginalized that we now live in a self imposed environment of fear and hared that has stopped us from even looking one another in the eye! And this phenomenon goes beyond our neighborhoods! It's stretches to our complete lack of global understanding. It is easier to hate what's different than to try to understand it.
I'm also really angry that we live in a country that allows anyone to own and carry a gun. The NRA and gun lobbyists will tell us that if guns are regulated in stricter ways the criminals win. BULLSHIT! I'm so sick of their argument that this is a 2nd amendment right. The second amendment - the right to bear arms - was a statement for the creation of a militia in a volatile time when a tyrannical king was seeking to subdue a budding nation. It was not a call for every chucklehead to arm himself and to use those arms whenever he has a bad day. I'm angry that our government allows the NRA to walk all over the rights of innocent, gunless people who simply want to be able to send their 5 year old to school without worrying that this is the day he or she will get his brains blown out. My niece today called her 6 year old daughter's school to inquire about their security and evacuation procedures. You have no idea how sad that makes me. That she had to even ask.
Shame on us for letting this happen. And shame on us for being so scared of one another that we feel the need to kill each other. Shame on us for losing our ability to reach out and embrace each other across the boundaries of race, religion, socio-economic class, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. We are all each other's parents. We are all each other's children. We are all family. We have to stop fearing each other and start healing each other. Maybe if someone had reached out a long time ago there would never have been a shooting in Norcross, GA. or Jackson, TN. or Chardon, OH. or Pittsburgh, PA. or North Miami, FL. or Oakland, CA. or Tulsa, OK. or Seattle, WA. or Wilmington, DE. or Boulder, CO. or Milwaukee, WI. or Minneapolis, MN. or Brookfield, WI. or Portland, OR. or Newton, CT. Maybe tonight parents wouldn't be mourning their children and the world wouldn't be wondering why we cannot get together to realize that love is all you need.
While my heart aches thinking of those families who cannot and never will again tuck their children into bed on this night, what I feel most of all, is anger. An intense, deep, burning anger.
Yes, I am angry at the young disillusioned man who killed his father and then went to the school where his mother worked to kill her and her kindergarten class. I am so angry at his actions. We can look at his actions and those of others who've gone on shooting rampages and soothe ourselves by saying, "Surely, he was mentally ill." One in four people in the US have a mental health diagnosis. So, look around kiddos...that might be the person standing next to you. Now I work with people who have severe and persistent mental illness and, to be honest, none of them illicit fear in me. Not a one. So while the shooter or shooters in these cases may have a mental health diagnosis, let's be real here...that unto itself is not the reason those innocent children or those movie goers or those high school kids or those shoppers at the mall or those worshippers at the temple are dead now. I would bet good money that the reason those people are dead now is that at some point those who pulled the trigger all were made to feel insignificant, isolated, ridiculed, strange, and unloved.
I am angry tonight at this grand country of ours. The USA - the land of opportunity for so many - has, over the course of several years now, become a land of fear. We fear getting our "stuff" stolen. We fear someone "attacking" us, breaking in, blowing us up, harming us or our loved ones. And we fear this because we are fed an almost constant stream of news about how horrible it is outside our own four walls and how there are very, very bad people out there who will absolutely hurt us. Neighbors do not even bother to get to know neighbors anymore because, after all, you can never be sure who that neighbor might be. We have been told to identify the strangers and to not tolerate them in any way. Our children learn this from us and so, from a young age, those who are not popular, not "in" or who are different in any way are made to feel that difference in no uncertain terms. We like to point them out and keep them at bay just in case they might really be who we think they are. Never mind we never actually take the time to hear their stories or understand what they are all about. How did we allow ourselves to become so marginalized that we now live in a self imposed environment of fear and hared that has stopped us from even looking one another in the eye! And this phenomenon goes beyond our neighborhoods! It's stretches to our complete lack of global understanding. It is easier to hate what's different than to try to understand it.
I'm also really angry that we live in a country that allows anyone to own and carry a gun. The NRA and gun lobbyists will tell us that if guns are regulated in stricter ways the criminals win. BULLSHIT! I'm so sick of their argument that this is a 2nd amendment right. The second amendment - the right to bear arms - was a statement for the creation of a militia in a volatile time when a tyrannical king was seeking to subdue a budding nation. It was not a call for every chucklehead to arm himself and to use those arms whenever he has a bad day. I'm angry that our government allows the NRA to walk all over the rights of innocent, gunless people who simply want to be able to send their 5 year old to school without worrying that this is the day he or she will get his brains blown out. My niece today called her 6 year old daughter's school to inquire about their security and evacuation procedures. You have no idea how sad that makes me. That she had to even ask.
Shame on us for letting this happen. And shame on us for being so scared of one another that we feel the need to kill each other. Shame on us for losing our ability to reach out and embrace each other across the boundaries of race, religion, socio-economic class, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. We are all each other's parents. We are all each other's children. We are all family. We have to stop fearing each other and start healing each other. Maybe if someone had reached out a long time ago there would never have been a shooting in Norcross, GA. or Jackson, TN. or Chardon, OH. or Pittsburgh, PA. or North Miami, FL. or Oakland, CA. or Tulsa, OK. or Seattle, WA. or Wilmington, DE. or Boulder, CO. or Milwaukee, WI. or Minneapolis, MN. or Brookfield, WI. or Portland, OR. or Newton, CT. Maybe tonight parents wouldn't be mourning their children and the world wouldn't be wondering why we cannot get together to realize that love is all you need.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
What the hell is wrong with people these days?
A girl named Amanda kills herself after constant bullying by her school mates and people are leaving horrible comments about how "she deserved it" on a web page created as a remembrance of her.
A man masquerades as a deaf, disabled young man and gets hundreds of people to follow him on Twitter and on his blog as he tells them of his feelings and dreams. People start to really care about this guy only to have a blog entry by his sister state that he became ill and passed away causing people who felt they knew him to mourn. Now it's discovered the whole thing was false. There never was a deaf, disabled guy or a sister. It was some attention seeking man who made the whole thing up.
We're in the heated months before a major election and any semblance of responsible, educated discussion has been reduced to hate filled memes and idiotic name calling. I've even seen memes about individuals religious beliefs which, I know, are intended to be jokes but are on the edge of bad taste and hatefulness.
I just don't get it. Where did we as a society lose our sense of common decency and genuine kindness for each other? There was a time when people acting in this manner would feel a sense of shame for their actions which went a long way in keeping idiots from this type of behavior. There's something to be said for understanding shame.
People study our society and they start to blame bad behavior and ignorance on many sources. The one that gets bantered about most is poverty. Yes, I concede that being poor and struggling does have an impact on one's life. I certainly did not grow up in the lap of luxury. Far from it. But to blame high crime, indecency and ignorant behavior on poverty is misguided. There are plenty of fine, upstanding people living in or at the poverty level in this country who grow up knowing how to treat people decently. Sometimes pundits will blame single parent families as the cause of this. They'll say growing up with two parents is paramount in being a decent human being. I don't get that either. I know many people who have been raised by a single mom or a single dad and they managed to raise them as kind, caring individuals.
I think the greater problem is that we, as a society, have allowed our own standards to slip so low that we, as a whole, have created this problem. We simply do not stand up for one another any more. We don't take time to get to know each other. How many of your neighbors do you speak to each week? Or daily? I've lived in places where I couldn't even tell you the name of the person next door. And I've lived in places where neighbors shared a cup of coffee, dropped off home grown veggies and watched each others kids. Believe me, the latter is better.
We have, by our own omission, made factions of people feel isolated and unwelcome in our cities and towns. We have witnessed bad behavior and stayed silent. Worse, we stayed silent when it happens within our own families.
It makes me cry to think of Amanda, so alone she could only think to take her own life. But it makes me sadder to see those people who think so little of a human life that, even after she's gone, they post venomous crap about her. Pity. And shame on them. If they were my son or daughter, their computer would be gone forever and I would make sure they spent every moment of their free time volunteering in someway to make a contribution to society, instead of being the little bitches they've shown themselves to be.
It makes me sad to think there is someone out there who would create a persona to take advantage of other people's feelings. But it makes me sadder to know there is someone out there so isolated that he felt that was the only way to get any meaningful interaction with another human being.
It makes me sad to know there are people who have to resort to name calling and anger in an election. What makes me sadder is that those people, whether Democrat or Republican, take so little time in understanding the real issues that need to be addressed in this election. And sadder still to see the pure hatred some people can spew on the Internet.
I work with people every day and, most days, I enjoy it but I have to be honest and tell you that there are some days when I just don't like people at all. On those days, I just need to shut down, read a book, get away and breathe. Today is one of those days.
A man masquerades as a deaf, disabled young man and gets hundreds of people to follow him on Twitter and on his blog as he tells them of his feelings and dreams. People start to really care about this guy only to have a blog entry by his sister state that he became ill and passed away causing people who felt they knew him to mourn. Now it's discovered the whole thing was false. There never was a deaf, disabled guy or a sister. It was some attention seeking man who made the whole thing up.
We're in the heated months before a major election and any semblance of responsible, educated discussion has been reduced to hate filled memes and idiotic name calling. I've even seen memes about individuals religious beliefs which, I know, are intended to be jokes but are on the edge of bad taste and hatefulness.
I just don't get it. Where did we as a society lose our sense of common decency and genuine kindness for each other? There was a time when people acting in this manner would feel a sense of shame for their actions which went a long way in keeping idiots from this type of behavior. There's something to be said for understanding shame.
People study our society and they start to blame bad behavior and ignorance on many sources. The one that gets bantered about most is poverty. Yes, I concede that being poor and struggling does have an impact on one's life. I certainly did not grow up in the lap of luxury. Far from it. But to blame high crime, indecency and ignorant behavior on poverty is misguided. There are plenty of fine, upstanding people living in or at the poverty level in this country who grow up knowing how to treat people decently. Sometimes pundits will blame single parent families as the cause of this. They'll say growing up with two parents is paramount in being a decent human being. I don't get that either. I know many people who have been raised by a single mom or a single dad and they managed to raise them as kind, caring individuals.
I think the greater problem is that we, as a society, have allowed our own standards to slip so low that we, as a whole, have created this problem. We simply do not stand up for one another any more. We don't take time to get to know each other. How many of your neighbors do you speak to each week? Or daily? I've lived in places where I couldn't even tell you the name of the person next door. And I've lived in places where neighbors shared a cup of coffee, dropped off home grown veggies and watched each others kids. Believe me, the latter is better.
We have, by our own omission, made factions of people feel isolated and unwelcome in our cities and towns. We have witnessed bad behavior and stayed silent. Worse, we stayed silent when it happens within our own families.
It makes me cry to think of Amanda, so alone she could only think to take her own life. But it makes me sadder to see those people who think so little of a human life that, even after she's gone, they post venomous crap about her. Pity. And shame on them. If they were my son or daughter, their computer would be gone forever and I would make sure they spent every moment of their free time volunteering in someway to make a contribution to society, instead of being the little bitches they've shown themselves to be.
It makes me sad to think there is someone out there who would create a persona to take advantage of other people's feelings. But it makes me sadder to know there is someone out there so isolated that he felt that was the only way to get any meaningful interaction with another human being.
It makes me sad to know there are people who have to resort to name calling and anger in an election. What makes me sadder is that those people, whether Democrat or Republican, take so little time in understanding the real issues that need to be addressed in this election. And sadder still to see the pure hatred some people can spew on the Internet.
I work with people every day and, most days, I enjoy it but I have to be honest and tell you that there are some days when I just don't like people at all. On those days, I just need to shut down, read a book, get away and breathe. Today is one of those days.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Just fed up...
I dunno...
The world is watching the peaceful gathering of athletes from all over the world and we're celebrating the individual triumphs of their achievements.
And nearby my home town a man walked into a temple and killed 6 people before police killed him.
I'm just getting so sick and tired of reading about these shootings. I'm tired of the subsequent arguments that ensue about how the constitution guarantees our right to bear arms and how if everyone had a gun then these things wouldn't happen because there would be someone there who would have taken the shooter out before he shot anybody and blah blah blah...just fed up with it all.
We live in an increasingly violent world where our citizens are kept separate by economic lines and our government plays on those economic differences and creates an ever widening gap between the rich and the poor.
We live in a time when we watch "real" people on television, some of who's sole purpose is to create conflict, cause arguments and burst into fist fights in rage.
We live in a time where individuals can feel so isolated from society that it plays with their minds and they begin to find reasons to kill.
No one knows how to resolve conflict peacefully anymore. No one views anyone with mutual positive regard anymore because we have been taught to fear and hate those who differ from us.
I'm just really tired of it and I feel, deep down, that there has to be some serious gun legislature soon. There has to be a voice of reason in all of this madness. If there isn't, the killing will just continue. And we will all just sit and watch, in shock and sickened once again.
The world is watching the peaceful gathering of athletes from all over the world and we're celebrating the individual triumphs of their achievements.
And nearby my home town a man walked into a temple and killed 6 people before police killed him.
I'm just getting so sick and tired of reading about these shootings. I'm tired of the subsequent arguments that ensue about how the constitution guarantees our right to bear arms and how if everyone had a gun then these things wouldn't happen because there would be someone there who would have taken the shooter out before he shot anybody and blah blah blah...just fed up with it all.
We live in an increasingly violent world where our citizens are kept separate by economic lines and our government plays on those economic differences and creates an ever widening gap between the rich and the poor.
We live in a time when we watch "real" people on television, some of who's sole purpose is to create conflict, cause arguments and burst into fist fights in rage.
We live in a time where individuals can feel so isolated from society that it plays with their minds and they begin to find reasons to kill.
No one knows how to resolve conflict peacefully anymore. No one views anyone with mutual positive regard anymore because we have been taught to fear and hate those who differ from us.
I'm just really tired of it and I feel, deep down, that there has to be some serious gun legislature soon. There has to be a voice of reason in all of this madness. If there isn't, the killing will just continue. And we will all just sit and watch, in shock and sickened once again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)