"...were just humans and until we start realizing that skin color is meaningless.  THen we are never going to truely come together."

A poet once said: "It is not enough to have memories... you must be able to forget them."

In a way, hyper-sensitivity to racial issues is a product and symptom of us clinging to our past.  Yes, a black person has every right to feel angry that his grandfather was a slave; a white person has the right to feel angry that they were imparted with guilt their entire life when they certainly had no choice being born into the present world.  While the right is always present, the anger should be temporal, not perpuated generationally.  If there is a way for humans to both pay mindful attention to our history's lessons, and find a dispassionate view to practice egalitarian philosophies in a pluralistic society, it will be done without the resentments of past transgressions.  We have all been wronged as individuals and many of us have been persecuted over things we have no control over.  These things are immeasurable so it is fruitless to cling to the past - and I believe it is possible to learn from the past while leaving the reactive anger behind.  We are better served when we overcome fear of the other, recognize our own agency, and learn to be here now.

Thanks for your post - keep fighting the good fight...

by MsGinger on 01/19/2009 05:26:08 PM EST