I didn’t do a post last week because I seem to be at a loss for words. It’s virtually impossible to watch the news or read a newspaper without wondering what in the world is happening to our country. I honestly thought things might settle down, but it just goes to show you how seriously wrong I can be.
People are still protesting, policemen/women are calling in sick or quitting outright, the virus is still there and growing, and the world appears to be going to Hell in a handbasket faster than kiss a duck. Why? Not why on kissing a duck, but it does beg the question…where did that expression come from? Since I say it all the time, I looked it up. We can blame Johnny Cash for that one, apparently, because he said he had to “change harmonicas faster than kiss a duck” for the Orange Blossom Special. How would he know? Had he kissed a duck? If so, again…Why? But…I digress.
I think I’ve finally broken the code on what’s going on. We can blame the Coronavirus. People have all this time on their hands, when they would normally be at work, going to the beach, at school, or a myriad other places. They’re stuck at home, and probably going stir crazy, with nothing better to do than complain. I can relate, although going out among a bunch of protestors doesn’t seem like it would be all that much fun. Of course, neither is making face masks, but after over 600 of them, I think I’ve got it down to a science. (Still don’t like it, though!)
At any rate, it seems like every day there’s a new issue. They went from protesting Mr. Floyd’s death to racial inequality to police brutality to all our monuments must go. I’m waiting for them to decide the Washington Monument in D.C. must go. I probably shouldn’t be giving them any ideas, but they really don’t need my help to be incensed about something. There appears to be no leeway if you have something in your past you should be ashamed of. No matter how much you did for the country or humanity in general, one mistake (albeit a rather large one) is all it takes. Thank God He doesn’t use that same philosophy, or none of us would ever be forgiven.
At some point, sanity must come back, doesn’t it? At some point, people must stop looking at others as the root of all their problems and look at themselves. By some statistics, in recent years there have been 1000 people killed by police, more than 50% of which were white. Of that, less than 4% were because a white cop killed an unarmed black person. With those statistics, it makes perfect sense they’d want to defund or disband the police because they actively hunt down and kill Blacks. Wait! Nope. I reread what I wrote, and it still doesn’t make a lick of sense.
I have a homework project for you. Look up Chicago’s homicide statistics. And what percentage of them were blacks killed by blacks. I’ll give you a hint. It’s not pretty! That’s what we should be protesting. Actually, what everyone should be protesting is the taking of any life, no matter by who and no matter what their ethnicity. Until we can get to that point, all the protests in the world aren’t going to help.
Does racism exist? Yes. Is it acceptable? No. But lumping all white people together, or all cops together, or all black people together is absolutely unacceptable. If America is so racist, then why did Obama get elected president? Statistically, he couldn’t have if only non-whites voted for him. And one thing that should be mentioned is that over 350,000 Union soldiers died during the Civil War. Over 2.1 million Northerners were mobilized to fight for the Union army. If all whites were/are racist, slavery would never have been defeated.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that racism isn’t totally limited to how Whites feel about Blacks. It’s a two-way street. If Blacks lump all Whites into the same category, that’s just as racist. Except Whites don’t normally take to the streets to protest what’s going on. Probably because we’re lazy. Oops! There I go, lumping everyone into my category. Racism is wrong, no matter who it’s directed at. Just ask the Japanese Americans incarcerated during the war. There are a million examples in our history of people hurting people. And that’s what’s wrong. It’s not a black/white issue, it’s a humanity issue.
Bottom line, life in America today is depressing and I’m not sure if or when it will get better. I’ve also seen an increase in the number of “Pray for America” Facebook posts. To my way of thinking, that’s really the only thing that’s ever going to fix our problem. Blaming one another or in some cases blaming all of society’s problems on the police won’t solve the problem. Looking up is the answer. When God is for you, who can be against you?