"but I understand why they are upset" part.....
That didn't bother me. I understand why they are upset also. Understanding it, allows us to try and make progress in addressing it. And that doesn't mean giving in to it.
And I for one appreciate also the post here showing white rioting. It allowed me to see just how much media can shape an image we see. And I am ashamed of my race when I see them do this. And I think Fallenarch is also. So lets use that common ground to build from. Hopefully both sides can agree we should punish these offenders EQUALLY!
I was forced by circumstance to grow up in the south. My dad got transferred here. I grew up witnessing cross burnings, lynchings, KKK parades. Our own house had a cross burned in the front yard. My dad worked with John Procter. He worked the killing of the civil rights activist in Ms. back in the 60s. Google it if you like. John Procter had death threats made to him by whites after he prosecuted. The sons and daughters of these racist are alive and well today. I left Ms. when I was 16. Hated it. I had whites all around me telling me to hate people I have never met. When you are young, you are impressionable and more open to drinking the Kool-Aid. I left the south. Lived and saw the world. Returned 25 years later, to see the same hatred alive and well.
Lack of education and opportunity and economic status, is absolutely a
factor of how people end up in their lives. These rednecks that hate are the same product of lack of education, etc. It is generational for them as well. They are no better then the blacks that are racist. Its a taught and learned thing. I respect Fallenarch's opinion more than I do some white members on this board. And I don't care if that bothers anyone else or not. Respecting them and agreeing to them are 2 different things.
For me what I need to see, is good leadership for each group. Make peace by having the leaders of each group, align themselves to a compromise as best they can. We are now a product of the same melting pot that brought us all here at some point.
I am sorry we lost MLK. He presented many productive ways to help bridge the racial gap. Non violently and with results. And he was shot down by a white racist. And Mr. Cosby. You have pissed me completely off. Until about 2 weeks ago, I liked what you tried to present to your black community as an example.
My sister and I are diametrically opposed politically. I still love and care for her and we find common ground to be productive in our own ways. Sometimes I need to draw on her strengths and sometimes she needs to draw on mine. She has a daughter who is making huge bad choices and my sister is now having to own up to her part in it!
I lived with and still to this day have a Muslim best friend, I love more than my own brother. In his world growing up, racism and religion can be swapped in conversation, and the results are the same. He realized that if he stayed in his home country of Iran, he would have been expected to hate anything that was part of a different religion. Yet he is still a practicing Muslim with a value system many Christians and Americans could do well to try and match. After 9/11 he was attacked and beaten....more than once. For doing nothing but being Muslim with a Middle East origin, walking down the street or shopping in a store. He was in fact working with us to track down Muslim terrorist. To protect
this country he loves ! He speaks 7 languages, 4 Middle Eastern Languages, and knows the Quran about as well as any Cleric.
I have learned as I have seen life, there is nothing wrong with hating something. Until it becomes the only thing that you expend your energy doing. Then it begins to control you rather than you control it.
Please have a Happy Thanksgiving, be thankful for what we have and look forward to as good a new year as we can manage.
Sorry the holidays are bringing out my sappy side. :-)
