Meh. I was hoping for a nice big fluffy snowstorm over my break, but the weather refuses to deliver. There's still time . . . .
While I was deciding whether or not to get out of bed earlier this morning, I was thinking about the past year, sort of weighing all the positives against the negatives that have happened in the country, seeing if they would balance. Does the fact that so many states have progressed in the granting of equal rights to gay couples help to counter the heavy weight of ugly racist incidents and commentary that have surfaced? It's almost hard for me to believe that the two can exist here and now, in the same time and country. I carried a big ol' bag of naive optimism with me from the "Flower Child" years, and it's not that I'm denying that we haven't come a long way, baby -- but I honestly struggle to understand how and why the status keeps quo'ing when it comes to equality and rights for brown and black folks.
Some of you will say it's human nature, needing to have an "other" to blame for when the majority don't get their way. Or it's the way the system is skewed, will be skewed, it's out of anybody's control except the 1%. In truth it's probably a little bit of all that and then some. It's the unwillingness of many to look in the mirror and really see what's there. Are all the steps in the right direction just like my dreamed-for snowstorm, something that comes along and temporarily pretties up the everyday, covering the ugly bits of our surroundings with something sparkly and bright, but destined to disappear once things heat up again?
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I so appreciate this reflection you offered here. In Canada we do racism in our own special way, even though we perform enlightened practice in selected and strategic sites. How cynical I remain. But, difficult to be otherwise given my obvious inability to turn away from total effing bullshit. SIGH.
ReplyDeleteKeep hoping for the storm that brings that mighty twist, the one that cannot be avoided with bobbing and weaving.
Keep on hoping and digging in, I guess. Work in the garden that 's in front of you.
and, keep writing!!
This national conflagration between the Black community and the police has led us down some pretty ugly roads, again. Being a minority who id pink in a majority Black community has offered some rather odd moments. A kid next door standing on his porch screaming "I HATE WHITE PEOPLE" was interesting.
ReplyDeleteThere is only one race that has been more put out than the Blacks of America, that being the Indigenous population. But what i find is that one f the biggest walls, which has two sides that bar the amity of America is the very real liberal "white guilt" and the very real willingness of the Black community to try to exploit that guilt and when it doesn't happen---well it turns into a see who can out shit on the other.
Personally Denise I am tired of it, it bores me now after 60 years. A good person is a good person and an asshole is an asshole. Being a minority that is discriminated against daily by the majority population and systems is enlightening about the reality of humanity.
The truth is few want to change, mostly IMP because them that could have led us to change were all assassinated when we were teenagers.