saintfan

Ah, but in a perfect world...

Labels are just names - a means to reference something. I see the problem as a bit deeper. It's not Labels, its people wearing their feelings on their sleeves and feeling justification in being offended and feeling entitled enough to actually believe everyone else should accommodate their emotion.

The world has NEVER worked that way, nor will it ever.

Ability to change does not equate into willingness. Some people have very deep rooted psychological reasons for their issues...racism in this case. Some people actually justify their position, as if it could ever be, and these people are both white and black and Asian and Hispanic etc.

The Beats didn't solve a damn thing. Neither did the Hippies, and neither did the SDS or the Weather Underground. When the dust settles, there will not be a separate jurisdiction in Seattle. The police will still exist. So will racism. For those who think I'm being a bit defeatist, as my grandmother would have said, "hide and watch."

You won't find many well thought out opinions on the street. You will find people spewing whatever their "news" source tells them to spew. These "news" sources are in the can for a political persuasion. Wash, rinse, and repeat. As long as we, the people, allow our politicians to create discord as a means to divide and get elected then we have the government we deserve and thus the society we deserve. The solution will NOT arrive through legislation. The problem is far greater.

How then do we solve the problem? I don't know. What "I" am doing is reading with my kids. Right now I'm reading "Killing England" to them. I don't want them to hear all the rhetoric about the founders being bad men because (and precisely because) some of them owned slaves. That's a red herring. I want them to know what was risked by those men, and I want them to see how, while not perfect, they created the greatest government in human history. They're sure as hell not going to learn it in school.

I'm also reading a book about an African American family who moved from the north back to the south (to live with the grandmother) in the 50s. I want my kids to know where the filter through which black people view the world comes from. I want them to have compassion for everyone's experience and to be considerate when they encounter what may be to them a foreign view. It's not about right or wrong. It's only about compassion.

I also want my kids to recognize a person who is beyond their ability to relate or help or console. Those people exist. They are not worth the effort. Best to smile, recognize the crazy, and move along...but that's another story...

I don't know what else to do. I am not a social justice warrior. I never will be, and in today's political climate that's an indictment. Whatever. The truth is I see it getting worse. We cannot freely express ourselves anymore in America, and that's disturbing. People seem to believe they have a right to be gloriously unoffended. Its not their fault. Everything they see and hear tells them they have this right...but they do not. None of us do.

Honestly a great place to start would be to turn off the TV. Read. Let your own mind form your own opinions rather than being dog-whistled into a viewpoint because your political affiliation. That way you can actually have an informed conversation with the opposition in a way that forces the other side to take you seriously. The problem is that requires work. Nobody wants to do the work...

C'mon Man...