Tagged: protests
Saying BLM Doesn’t Mean you Hate All Cops
Supporting Black Lives doesn’t mean hating all law enforcement officers or opposing “Blue” Lives.
Supporting criminal justice reform; for excessive force, for for-profit corporate contracts, for over-militarization, for more, longer & better training, for excessive incarceration, and yes- for systemic, institutionalized racism does not mean you’re “anti-police.”
Wearing a mask in public & being careful & concerned about Covid is not a “liberal” thing, it’s certainly not a hoax.
Opposing & criticizing Trump isn’t anti-American or sour grapes for a Democrats. Republicans, including President Bush, & several Generals & former Secretaries of State- most Republicans, a few Trump appointees oppose him.
Sharing our positions & opinions and responding to, disagreeing with, and even calling-out errors in each other’s opinions DOESN’T mean anyone hates you or you’re “bad,” or that you’re dumb or always wrong about everything. It means you’re in community. If you love your community, you want it to improve. You want it to be the best it can be.
I have several former students who are cops. I carr about their safety & well being. One of them is one of my dearest friends. I had an uncle who was a cop. I always admired him. I also have a nephew who protested recently. I’m tremendously proud of them.
I also have lots of former students who are Black. Some of whom are are very dear to me. I’d say at least one of them is another of my dearest friends. And several friends in inter-racial marriages. I cannot ignore their fears and concerns and the experiences they’ve shared (and how many they’ve never shared).
These are difficult times. Please be patient & kind with each other. Maybe be even MORE kind & patient with those you disagree with. They don’t hate you, they aren’t attacking YOU. They’re passionate about their beliefs. They’re resisting your positions & opinions, not you as a person, not everyone like you or EVERYTHING you know, believe in or stand for- just what you embrace that they see as hurtful, hateful or divisive.
Isn’t that what you think you hate about them? Not THEM, but some of their ideas? Not WHO they are but a lot of what they seem to stand for that you disagree with or are afraid of or that makes you mad or doesn’t make sense to you. Right?
Two things to try: Ask yourself WHY are hey so passionate about their views? WHY are the opposed to my views? Now ask WHY am I so bent outta shape by what they support? And WHY exactly am I so zealous about what I think. Is there ANY chance whatsoever that maybe either of us don’t know everything?
For Love of Country
This is a non-stop aching in the gut.
I can’t avoid the news forever, I apparently need to avoid Facebook and Twitter for at least a while.
Trump voters are offended by (and perhaps afraid of) the protests and flags being burned and the president-elect being disparaged.
Some of us who didn’t vote for Trump are frightened that civil rights and civil liberties will be stripped away. We are afraid that democracy as we knew it will be suspended, violated, tortured and dismembered.
Really? Wearing a damn safety-pin is unpatriotic?
Really? We’re persecuting you with words like “deplorable” or accusations of racism, sexism, & xenophobia? We’re the bullies? Not the Klansmen waving confederate flags at Veteran’s day parades? Not those writing Jew, and Nigger, and Faggot on peoples’ homes and cars?
Is it alarmist or reactionary or irrational to wonder if you should flee to Canada? Was it alarmist or reactionary or irrational for Austrians and Belgians and Czechs and Poles to flee Europe in the 1930’s?
I’m a coward. I will sit down and shut up and do my best not to rock the boat. It’s more important to me to get a long with neighbors and family and friends. I live in a homogeneous, rural area, what minorities or LGBT people do I have to stand up for?
But my hero, the mad I empathize for and admire right now is Captain Georg von Trapp, the Austrian naval officer who refused to support or accept an enlistment from NAZI Germany.
MY country was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that ALL men are created equal. But it seems that our nation has been annexed by a power that believes in mocking the disabled, assaulting women, profiling Blacks, deporting Hispanics, “converting” homosexuals and torturing suspects. This new regime came to power on the fury of uneducated disadvantaged working class whites, but its intended policies will outrageously benefit the wealthiest of the wealthy.
Is this how Langston Hughes felt all his life? That the promises of equality and liberty and justice are all hollow, or at least that they are only for a privileged, privileged few?
God, give me the courage to stand in the conviction of our principles. Grant me the wisdom and self-control and gentleness and the magnanimity to demonstrate and teach and persuade the angry, self-righteous, defensive masses those principles. But if the day ever comes, Lord, grant me the protection and opportunity to spirit my family to safety, like von Trapp did his across the Alps to Switzerland.
My country, ‘ tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing;
Our fathers’ God, to thee,
Author of liberty, to thee we sing;
Long may our land be bright
With freedom’s holy light;
Protect us by thy might, great God, our King.
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