In or Out?

I had been so busy with work, that I never bothered to check the news. I didn’t know it had happened until a day or so later and even then, I had so much work on my plate I couldn’t take the time to sit down and read about it all. It’s only today that I’d managed to carve out several hours out of my day.

Race … racism … hatred … fear …. anger …

There has got to be something better than this.

I’m watching these green blobs float into this blue substance – they don’t mix. They stay separate. Such a sad reality. Always being apart. Is this … how we are to live?

You watch your channel … and I’ll watch mine.

You listen to your music … and I’ll listen to mine.

You learn your history … and I’ll learn mine.

You live your life … and I’ll live mine.

Isn’t this … voluntary segregation? Is it the best solution? I don’t think so.

It just prolongs this idea that we have to be separate. That we’re so different that it’s a wonder we breathe the same air and drink the same water.

I’d much rather we believed: “Be together not the same.”

I don’t want to erase what makes you who you are, but I should be accepted for who I am. Neither of us should be guilty of what others have done in the name of our traits. We can’t choose what we’re born into … but we can chose to rise above the easy out.

Show me how to be together even if I’m not the same. Don’t shut me out because I’m not like you. Try not to throw around labels before you get to know me.

Thinking about Avatar, I found Neytiri’s frustrated complaint that Jake was just like a baby to be missing an obvious fact. Technically, he was. He was born into his Na’vi body less than a week before she meets him and he’s totally ignorant of her way of life. I can’t speak for everyone, but in much the same way, I’m really new to this world and I find myself stumbling around because I don’t know how to walk. Show me your way of life, let me be one with the people.

If you want to make it an us vs them sort of thing, just know that I’m not your enemy. I could be an ally – if you’d let me.

In the mean-time, it seems I have some serious reading to catch up. Care to recommend me some authors?

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One thought on “In or Out?

  1. The division in society is honestly so sad because you’re right. We could all just sit in voluntary segregation and not just along race lines but I don’t want to use the excuse of “How much do they expect us to give?” “How do they expect us to live when it’s always been this way?”
    I think people get so hung up on the concept of entitlement that they don’t see where hurt has truly been caused. They don’t see that the system that is meant to protect us in our cushy little bubbles, doesn’t protect people in minorities, it leaves them out and profiles them. And it is so hard to try to communicate that to somebody who thinks Black Lives Matter and its allies are just being whiny babies. It doesn’t help that BLM is filled with people angry at so many who are like us in promise but not in deed. They have seen the promises for years. But when we are used to a cushy lifestyle, I imagine our word is hard to trust. Having been religious for so many years, with my eyes on issues that didn’t exist, I didn’t see. Now I do. And I really hope they know that I want to be there for them now like I never could be before. It’s just heartbreaking that the treatment of minority groups even has to be a discussion. Shouldn’t this be a given?

    Liked by 1 person

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