recycled racism

So most people who know me know that my son Lance is half Filipino. For that reason we have a lot at stake in winning the war on hate.

There are people we know that do not think his being bi-racial counts in the problem with racism because he is not black. Believe me it counts.

When he first started to school some of the children in his class chastised him for being brown, to the point, this child who always loved school, did not want to go. We worked through these issues in our home and came out on the other side of this. This mostly happened when Lance did the work inside his own little mind to figure out that what people said about him in ignorance could never change who he was. He has done the work on this and he wins at it everyday. He is a champion.

When he was grown and started to drive he was pulled over almost every time he went to Cookeville somewhere around Algood and for no good reason, his car would be searched. This never happened to Skyler or his friends.

When I was married to his father I can remember elderly men turning all the way around to watch us long after we passed them when we were in public. You don't need to be black to experience racism.

All of this gives me reason to want to see racism end but it's not even that. No mother should have to worry about her child just because their skin is not white. So, when I hear people say racist things I can only help but wonder if those words passed between two people, who probably won't harm my son, encourage someone else with the less constraint, to someday hurt my child, my baby. Can you, uncles and cousins, promise me that your words will never rally people to hurt my baby?

You never know how well you know someone until they start a Facebook account. I've started to notice something since joining Facebook and seeing where people put their energy everyday. I've noticed that racism is a lazy thing. There is nothing original about it. Everything I see there is just recycled shit. It's like racists ancestors passed down a pair of shoes they used to walk through shit and the generation that took them up and put them on were too lazy to wipe the shit off. They told us that waving the rebel flag was about heritage and no one took the time to research and see what the people who waved it thought it was about. You can't just say heritage because someone told you that. It doesn't make it true. You can't think that all black people are the same anymore than you can think that all white people are the same just because someone told you that. You can't think that the DHS office is filled with "Mexican's" if you've never been there to see for yourself that there are a lot of able bodied white youth there instead. When people tell you that, that's what they see because that is what they look for. Instead of thinking the Hispanic community is taking all of our jobs apply for a job where you see someone Hispanic working and see if you get turned down. The people who apply for jobs are generally the ones who get them. Because people say a thing does not make it true.

As a society, we need to stop being lazy with our ideas. We need to study, open our eyes and stop recycling ideas that should have died long ago. They do not serve anyone. The internet is the greatest device ever made to distribute information. Stop looking for evidence to support hate and look for evidence to support love. If you make up your mind that in this instance you'll stop judging the circumstances of those people around you and just love all people no matter, the fog of hate would lift and we'd become brand new. All the hate in this world is inanimate. It is not real. When we see this and just erase it from our minds we won't have to have a gun on our hip and a lock on our door. When you put your fear out into the world you contribute to the thing you hope to eradicate with your locks and guns. PeAcE