Tag: hate

Superman talks about race…conclusion

“Never look down on a man unless you are helping him up”

Author unknown.

Yesterday I tackled a very hot issue and revealed an embarrassing moment of my life that I deeply regret. You can catch up here.

I am deeply troubled by the state of our nation. We are deeply divided… Especially with regards to race relations. As the issue of racism continues to ravage our “civilized” society I have tried to take a broad view and expand my thinking on the subject. Infusing my vast Sociological experience as a Superhero and crime fighter I broke it down into smaller, more manageable pieces to dissect.

To truly define and get to the root of the causes of racism let’s  start with the root of the word. What exactly does the term “race” even mean?  We all think we do, but do we?

Dictionary.com defines race as:
A group of people of common ancestry, distinguished from others by physical characteristics, such as hair type, the color of eyes and skin, stature, etc.

In this day and age, not only does this definition seem less polarizing as our society continues to blend black, white and Asian genetics (the three originally stated races) but it doesn’t encompass the ongoing religious and socio-economic divisions that also dominate our “racist” society. This caused me to look more generally at the issue and what I came up with is that our penchant for oppressing others is less about Genealogy and more about Insecurity (which drives the need for Superiority), Misinformation, Ignorance, and Laziness. All of which are uniquely human attributes that are amazingly easy to control if your mind is in the right place.

Insecurity
Insecurity is a word that has many connotations. For the sake of this conversation, I am theorizing that as human beings we are generally fragile creatures who in the mildest cases seek validation and at the extreme seek to be superior over others. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to deem others inferior to you. This is where the word race becomes ambiguous. Beyond hair color, eye color, and skin color we also discriminate on the basis of religion, politics and economic status. Here, it is fitting to introduce the words Prejudice and Bias into the lexicon.

As a society, we have formed biases based on stereotypes and outdated constructs that cause us to lump entire groups of people into one neat little box and look down upon them. We do this to feel superior because that is part of our nature.  Why? Often to feel better about ourselves. It even exists in prison where one inmate can take comfort in the fact that he’s only a robber, but that guy over there…he’s a killer. I’m better than him. Social strata are everywhere. The difference between people and flowers is simple. Two flowers next to each other do not pay attention to the other and do not seek to cut each other down, they simply reach for the sun and try to bloom.
flowers
Misinformation
Racism in America is a prevalent topic and rears its ugly head in News stories every day. Some of the stories, mugshots, videos and images we see boil our blood. We all react. Be careful, I implore you, to think and do some homework before you form an opinion (or a bias or a prejudice) based on what you are being fed. There is a force larger than us, a system that enjoys bombarding us with false information; fails to provide the complete story; blatantly mislabels and edits out that which doesn’t support its narrative and simply loves to stir the shit pot. Hate sells, Peace does not. There is bad and good in the world and we are being shown most of the bad. Civil unrest sells papers and drives political agendas. It’s up to us to seek our own “fair and balanced” news. We need to wake up and realize that despite the forces that make us dance on strings like puppets, we all own a pair of scissors and we can cut them.

Ignorance
Ignorant is a word that is historically misused. Ignorant is not a hateful term,it simply means that one is uneducated or uninformed. Incredibly, in a day of unparalleled access to information many choose to be ignorant. When false, biased and incomplete information is fed to a ignorant person they will choose to believe it, adopt it as their own and in some cases spread it themselves. I recently watched a documentary on the KKK. One man that was interviewed started off on script, spouting his rehearsed, hateful, canned lines that help him sleep at night. But when pressed about the Holocaust he actually said that it wasn’t a bad thing, that they weren’t concentration camps…it was a SUMMER CAMP for Jews! His brief was that daily activities included Arts and Crafts and swimming. Ignorance on that level, from a man that has an audience, is nothing less than appalling and dangerous.

Laziness
This is an easy one. In order to stop marginalizing, judging and hating we as a society would be required to put a little elbow grease into it. We’re not that country anymore. We’re lazy.

Hate is easy, Acceptance takes work.

If we were mere skeletons we would look the same as everyone else. What separates us are our differences. No one is right and no one is wrong. We are just different. Yet our biases prevent us from reaching out and bridging gaps and finding out what we have in common, not what makes us different. Don’t we all, with the exception of a tiny percentage all want the same things out of life? Babies of all colors and religions could play together until they are taught why they shouldn’t. Prejudices are learned behavior. And these prejudices have become a giant wedge between us.
babies.jpg
Why, knowing that intelligence and talent are equally dispersed but opportunity is not, do we assume that a person born from differnet beginnings could never achieve greatness? A man’s beginnings is certainly not a predictor of where he will end. Yet we make assumptions at the least, and hurl hate in the most extreme cases if someone does not pray, speak, look or act as we do. Wouldn’t it be so much better to see a man with different hair, skin or clothes and not think “I don’t like you, you’re the problem with this country” but instead think “I wonder what that person is about, I’d like to learn his story”.

My approach to people has always been, with the exception of that one unfortunate incident, is to like or not like based on whether you are an Asshole or not. The last time I checked Asshole is not a race. People are people and all deserve our respect if not our love. I will eat at any man’s table regardless of his income, ethnicity or religion if he is a decent and respectable person. If, as a society we continue to decline in our ability to communicate, reason, tolerate and love our brothers we will surely fail. Political systems and ideologies will run their course, some will succeed and some will fail. But behind it all are people, people that were born color-blind and learned to hate, ignoring the countless societal institutions that we have to obtain knowledge; the enemy of ignorance, to learn tolerance; the enemy of prejudice, to learn compassion; the enemy of hate.

Without this, we simply have no future.

“Be kind, for every man you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

 

 

Labels are for boxes

Superman is about to delve into previously unchartered waters…Politics. I briefly touched on it in a piece I did about civil war, inspired by a wonderful post by Bojana about her experience in war-torn former Yugoslavia. It’s amazing by the way check it out. here https://bloggingwithbojana.com/2018/03/07/welcome-to-absurdistan/

I have largely stayed away from politics in my blogs. After 9 months and almost 200 posts I now feel that I have established myself as a reasonable, civil guy and I have a confession to make. I am a Conservative…of sorts and I voted for Donald Trump. I believed in enough of what he wanted to accomplish to give him my vote. Immigration reform, crime reform, smaller government, a balanced budget, a secure border and the future of the Supreme court matter a great deal to me. On those, he secured my vote. Let the unfollowing begin. Or let cooler heads prevail. If you read to the end, you will likely agree that I am not a typical Conservative at all. Here’s the kicker, I’m not looking for your approval I’m just going to stimulate some conversation here.

I know some beautiful, smart and compassionate people that voted for both Donald Trump and Hillary. I love them all and I don’t judge or hate. I am in the minority. Our country is hopelessly divided. We have always had an ideological divide, but it has become intensely personal. If you are on FB you will see nothing but Vitriol spewed on both sides of the spectrum and it is so unhealthy on so many levels. My generation taught me that there are certain subjects never to discuss, but I disagree. Religion, sexuality, and Politics can be discussed if we were also taught the art of rational, intelligent discourse. Repeat after me, “I disagree but I respect your opinion.” Instead, we close our ears and raise our voice. We rear back on our heels and defend, for fear of losing, when instead we should be chin on hands, listening to each other. Tragically, we care more about “our side” than we do about real change.

“My side” is traditional William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan conservatism. I revert to that point in history because if you use the word “Conservative” now you will likely invoke the iconic MAGA hat worn by the “Trump Supporter.” The very words ”Trump Supporter” are hissed by liberals in the same manner that the Pope may utter “Contraception”. The words have become synonymous with Racist, Xenophobe, Nazi, Fascist and Bully. That’s not me, I’m happy to report, but it is a reality that a lot of Trump era conservatives live up to it and it’s a shame. I am tolerant, empathetic, polite and educated enough to agree to disagree with someone without shouting them down, closing my ears when I should be listening, or ignoring or exaggerating “facts” in order to win one for my side.

I am saddened that I have to avoid the subject of politics altogether for fear of being attacked. I’m actually pretty liberal on social matters. I believe in love between two people regardless of gender; I believe in immigration if it is done legally. I believe in law and order but not martial law. I believe in concealed carry but see no reason for anyone to own an AR-15. Go ahead and try to force this square peg into a round hole, you can’t do it. Criticize me, I can handle it. Just do it constructively, don’t shout and pay attention when I speak. I deserve that courtesy.

Roughly 24% of Americans identify as Republicans, approximately 30% identify as Democrats. What is left is the Independent voter. I identify as an Independent, despite the federal govt’s alternate term of “undecided voter”. I share this political distinction with approximately half of the country and I would like to think that we are independent because of our insistence on thinking for ourselves. We reject party politics and hate labels. But labels are all we have now. Whether it is driven by the media, George Soros, Hollywood, a basic lack of education, short attention spans or the absolute lack of critical thinking but we are mired in labels.

Republican, Democrat, Progressive, Liberal, Tea-Party, and Right-winger. Labels, Labels, Labels. Despite the numbers I stated in the previous paragraph, I see 15% of the country at the very far right, 15% at the very far left and 70% right in the middle, forced to pick between two candidates that seem to satisfy enough of us. But the extremes have defined Republicans and Democrats and forced those willing, not me, to be forcefully compartmentalized. Those unfortunate voters are the true Republicans, the true Democrats, and the Independents. The 15% on each side quarrel over extreme ideology and the rest of us vote our conscience and our wallets, the order of those 2 is up to you.

At the end of the day, it is all bullshit. Neither party of our broken two-party system stand for what they used to, the lines are so blurred and the aisle dividing the houses of Congress is as wide as the ocean and it doesn’t matter because no one is reaching across it. Fulfilling campaign promises and getting reelected take precedent over real legislative accomplishment. There used to be moderates, who believed that there was a compromise to be made for the better of all. They’re either gone or too afraid to stand up for fear of reprisal. If you watched the SOTU you clearly saw that when the President had his applaud moments, entire sides of the rooms respectively stood or sat with their arms crossed. Some Democrats were so resistant to standing for anything the president said they sat even when families of murdered children were honored. It was disgusting, and it said it all. Fear of breaking labels, that’s all it is.

What is a typical Democrat and Republican after all? Where does being a Democrat end and a Progressive begin? Where does a Republican end a Tea-Party Conservative begin?
Democrats, commonly known now as “Liberals” have always considered themselves the party of the working man. They opposed corporate greed and the Industrial Military Complex, and strongly focused on social issues. Today, the Democrats have become the party of bloated government, high taxes, massive regulation, and throwing tremendous amounts of money at problems in hopes that they go away. The focus of some extreme modern democrats on trans-gender bathrooms, abortion, open borders, the suppression of speech that offends their beliefs and the eschewing of religion has earned many to the far-left the label of “Progressive”. A progressive believes in social engineering, “hug-it-out’s” for terrorists, legislating income redistribution and, generally speaking, dwell on utopian ideals. I find great hypocrisy in the Democrats of today. Example, how can you champion yourselves the party of equality, while at the same time propping up Muslims who routinely deny women the most basic of rights, subject underage girls to marriage and stone homosexuals to death?

Republicans were traditionally known as the party of “family values”, believed in a strong military, a market economy, personal accountability, and were strongly aligned with the Evangelical Christians. Republicans are no better than their Democrat peers in their obstructionism, failure to reach across the aisle and to adhere to their core principles. I contend, despite my own identification as a Conservative, that the Republicans have drifted farther off course than the Democrats. Today, the Republicans are completely off message. They are trying to solve the complex problem of immigration through massive arrests. They are as guilty of allowing jobs to flee this country as the Democrats. Their alliance with the extreme-right Evangelicals is shameful. Their refusal to stand up to their major campaign donors, the NRA and the Pharmaceutical industries and their lobbyists have left them ineffective and blatant hypocrites who are blocking even the discussion of real reform on major issues. Also prone to hypocrisy, they lost me when they cut benefits to Veterans while touting themselves as the supporters of the military.

Instead of fixing the problems before them, the powers that be distract us by telling us what to hate and who to blame for it. Hence the labels. I for one am tired of it. I am a Conservative that was forced to vote for Donald Trump. It took every fiber of my body to do it, I almost skipped the vote altogether. I find that he cares about some things that matter to me while Hillary represents nothing I believe in. So I again voted against a candidate and not for one. I am not a Nazi, a Fascist, a Racist or a Sexist. But I stand to be labeled as one.

https://endsandbeginningsblog.wordpress.com/ a blogger I admire, posted recently about a reaction to Conservatives and their bad behavior, in particular, being called a “typical liberal.”
https://endsandbeginningsblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/20/typical-liberal/
I commented on the post, not realizing that I was having a visceral reaction to the post. I do disagree with a lot of what was said, but I felt like I was being called out. That wasn’t the case and I gave a balanced response along the lines of what I have written here. At the end of the day, I wanted to convey that  I am not a “typical conservative”. Even if that was the case, why do I care?

Because we are living in a fractured, divided culture and we are all on edge. Half the country is yelling at the other half and nothing is being resolved. The big picture is that the division in our society, as manifested in our behavior towards each other is based on all of us feeling that we are not being heard, so we speak louder.

My mother always said, “when you are speaking you are not listening.” I would further extrapolate on that and say if you are shouting you aren’t helping. Step out of your comfort zone, step out of our compartmentalized belief system, question what you’re being fed by the media, embrace another’s opinion. They’re not wrong, they’re just different. No one is smarter and no one is dumber. At least it looks that way until we speak. The way I see it, if we reshape our ways of communicating, it’s possible our leaders will find their lost direction in our new one.

Labels are for envelopes, not for people. We’re better than that. One love, baby.