I am astonished by kindness, awed by talent and beauty, and overwhelmed with anger and sadness by blatant, reckless thoughtlessness and unwarranted hate.
It seems, the older I get, and I’ve aged rapidly in the last couple of years, the worse people have become, and the less tolerant I’ve become of unabridged ignorance and unbridled animosity.
Maybe I’m just out of touch, but I remember a time when the public odium was not this prevalent; when we expected, not just hoped for the best in people. Once there wasn’t a 100 foot, unscaleable barrier between everyone; we didn’t discuss religion or politics with the singular intention of blame and ridicule, we didn’t call authorities on strangers because we disliked what they looked like or for what they believed…
Yes actually, people did, but that was supposed to have disappeared with the fall of the Third Reich, Tail Gunner Joe, “No Irish, Jewish, Chinese, or Italian need apply”, along with forced segregation and Jim Crow Laws. What people didn’t do was threaten people by the calling in of false bomb threats, ‘Swatting,’ or bullying the helpless, hopeless, homeless, and victimised.
We didn’t let our children be killed on playgrounds, in schools, religious services, or in their homes by drive-by shootings and semi-automatic strafing planned to get the agitators’ names broadcast all over the media. We didn’t deliberately drive people off the road because we didn’t like their bumper stickers or their physical attributes.
We didn’t spew vitriol to total strangers in public, whether in person or via forms of communication meant to bring people together instead of ripping them apart. We fought for each other, not with each other. We said please, thank you, helped strangers with directions that didn’t consist of curses and suggestions of impossible sexual acts; we ate together, talked to each other, greeted new neighbours with food or flowers and not fear and weapons.
Once we believed in the American Dream instead of the American Nightmare; once we were proud, respected, upwardly mobile, but now what is left to us other than embarrassment, fear, and hate?
Well, it's only my opinion, and no doubt I'll get plenty of other conflicting opinions giving me the diagrams for those impossible, physical acts.
Ronda R. Scott-Marak
© 7 June 2018
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