#Problems
I've got problems, and not of the ASAP Rocky variety. No, my problems fall more in line with those once touted by Lupe Fiasco when he said "I'm a part of the problem. My problem is I'm peaceful. And I believe in the people."
It seems like everywhere you turn people are full of hate or intolerance, prone to violence. It seems near impossible to spend one single day without hearing about the new, latest tragedy. Terms like domestic terrorism are now a regular part of household conversation and hate crimes become trending topics.
It makes me wonder if here in the land of the free there ever was a time of peace. A time where people felt reasonably safe and secure from threats near and far? A time where the threat of violence did not loom around every corner, behind every shadow, like some omnipresent boogieman.
At the risk of sounding pessimistic, I would have to say that even a cursory examination of US History suggests not. We are still a pretty young country and yet our history is full of wars fought both abroad and on our own soil, along with nearly continuous periods of tensions between groups of people that never really went away, but rather were merely swept under the rug.
I often find myself wondering if things were always this bad and I simply never noticed (courtesy of childhood ignorant bliss), or if our condition in this country is worsening. If the latter, then why now? On the surface, it would seem that we have made great strides of late. Having a black president among other notable historical milestones only recently crossed, seems to support this notion. So why doesn't it feel like progress?
I'd have to agree with Chris on this one. Slavery ended, Civil Rights were won and we as a country were so ashamed of our dark past that we rushed to bury it deep down and far out of sight. It's like as soon racial equality became mainstream, and most people began to accept that racism was wrong, they immediately sought to distance themselves from the word and its connotations.
But we skipped the autopsy. We never took the time to examine what had transpired. We never bothered to ask why, or seek out a comprehensive explanation for those actions. We never addressed the root cause. And we never examined the ways that these beliefs shaped the structure of our country. People became a lot more uncomfortable with the idea of being called a racist than challenging deeply rooted ideologies and institutions that were racist or at the very least prejudiced.
This mess was left to decay in plain sight only thinly veiled, and we thought that by ignoring it the problem would just go away. Generation after generation would pass and like some nasty genetic mutation, racism would eventually breed itself out of existence.
This line of thinking made it easy to ignore those who tried to draw attention to this mess. It gave us an out. It allowed us to dismiss those who didn't fall into our trendy new post-racial way of being, by writing their behavior and their mindsets off as remnants of the old way. These people, the few and far between, were relics. They were from a different time. There was no way that they reflected anything larger than their own bigoted selves.
We so desperately wanted to believe this was the case.
Except, one thing that the last couple of years has forced us to slowly wake up to and acknowledge is the possibility, no, the extremely high probability that we were dead wrong.
So back to my problem.
I'm still peaceful. Living in a world where each day peace seems less and less attainable; more like a dream from which I awaken into turmoil and pain of humans hurting humans hurting animals and destroying our world. And I wonder when it will end.
Some days the weight of the awareness of all the problems facing our generation seems unbearable.
But I'm still peaceful. And I still believe in the people. I only wonder when they will finally believe in themselves enough to bring about the necessary change. This isn't the sort of war that can be won by any one solitary warrior.
No, it is going to take a whole lot of people waking up, standing up, together, and saying enough is enough.
It is going to take a whole lot of giving a damn about things that matter.
And a whole hell of a lot of belief in one another, and ourselves.
No one person can change the world all by themselves. It is going to take the power of the people, united, and caring, against all odds.
Yet, and still, I believe.
It seems like everywhere you turn people are full of hate or intolerance, prone to violence. It seems near impossible to spend one single day without hearing about the new, latest tragedy. Terms like domestic terrorism are now a regular part of household conversation and hate crimes become trending topics.
It makes me wonder if here in the land of the free there ever was a time of peace. A time where people felt reasonably safe and secure from threats near and far? A time where the threat of violence did not loom around every corner, behind every shadow, like some omnipresent boogieman.
At the risk of sounding pessimistic, I would have to say that even a cursory examination of US History suggests not. We are still a pretty young country and yet our history is full of wars fought both abroad and on our own soil, along with nearly continuous periods of tensions between groups of people that never really went away, but rather were merely swept under the rug.
I often find myself wondering if things were always this bad and I simply never noticed (courtesy of childhood ignorant bliss), or if our condition in this country is worsening. If the latter, then why now? On the surface, it would seem that we have made great strides of late. Having a black president among other notable historical milestones only recently crossed, seems to support this notion. So why doesn't it feel like progress?
I'd have to agree with Chris on this one. Slavery ended, Civil Rights were won and we as a country were so ashamed of our dark past that we rushed to bury it deep down and far out of sight. It's like as soon racial equality became mainstream, and most people began to accept that racism was wrong, they immediately sought to distance themselves from the word and its connotations.
But we skipped the autopsy. We never took the time to examine what had transpired. We never bothered to ask why, or seek out a comprehensive explanation for those actions. We never addressed the root cause. And we never examined the ways that these beliefs shaped the structure of our country. People became a lot more uncomfortable with the idea of being called a racist than challenging deeply rooted ideologies and institutions that were racist or at the very least prejudiced.
This mess was left to decay in plain sight only thinly veiled, and we thought that by ignoring it the problem would just go away. Generation after generation would pass and like some nasty genetic mutation, racism would eventually breed itself out of existence.
This line of thinking made it easy to ignore those who tried to draw attention to this mess. It gave us an out. It allowed us to dismiss those who didn't fall into our trendy new post-racial way of being, by writing their behavior and their mindsets off as remnants of the old way. These people, the few and far between, were relics. They were from a different time. There was no way that they reflected anything larger than their own bigoted selves.
We so desperately wanted to believe this was the case.
Except, one thing that the last couple of years has forced us to slowly wake up to and acknowledge is the possibility, no, the extremely high probability that we were dead wrong.
So back to my problem.
I'm still peaceful. Living in a world where each day peace seems less and less attainable; more like a dream from which I awaken into turmoil and pain of humans hurting humans hurting animals and destroying our world. And I wonder when it will end.
Some days the weight of the awareness of all the problems facing our generation seems unbearable.
But I'm still peaceful. And I still believe in the people. I only wonder when they will finally believe in themselves enough to bring about the necessary change. This isn't the sort of war that can be won by any one solitary warrior.
No, it is going to take a whole lot of people waking up, standing up, together, and saying enough is enough.
It is going to take a whole lot of giving a damn about things that matter.
And a whole hell of a lot of belief in one another, and ourselves.
No one person can change the world all by themselves. It is going to take the power of the people, united, and caring, against all odds.
Yet, and still, I believe.
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