Friday, November 28, 2014

Friday ain't that black afterall.

All that rioting in Ferguson kept me awake the night of verdict. With two hours, I'm exaggerating, three hours of sleep, I did my Wednesday grocery shopping trip with my mother. The two grocery stores we visit were prepared with extra workers for a hard day before Thanksgiving.

The riots are such a waste. Think of the cost and how the money could have been spent better. It is one thing to protest but destruction is another thing.

It's Thanksgiving and most of the cloud of worry has dissipated with the reality of daylight. What is it about night to create ideas that seem so real that will not live through the next day..

1. I've got to get in gear and clean the worst of this filthy house before dinner. I am grateful for a house.

2. My mother is driving me nuts with her complaining and demands. She is determined to cook the meal and yet wants me to lift this, get this, fuss at my brother and tell him he is lazy. I am grateful my mother is still here and has the wits to cook.

3. My pets shed hair and sleep on my clean folded clothes which I will wash again to get the hair off. I am grateful for my pets love and friendship.

4. My sister brings a loaf of bread to make a dressing sandwich. She hasn't even eaten her meal. I've made rolls. Why can't the food we make be enough. I am grateful my sister cares enough to come and break bread with us.

As I finish getting the table set for dinner, my handicapped sister who lives with me stops to thank me for what I do for the family.

Thanksgiving evening, I surf the internet looking for something interesting to read. I sneer at the ones wanting to explain Ferguson. Some of them are just hate filled diatribes. It's funny how what we see reflects what we want to see. I have a friend who pontificates Martin Luther King quotes.

In time we will all get it. The tragedy is Michael Brown was not a monster and was so young with a future. Whether Darren Wilson callously murdered him will be debated. I think Darren Wilson did what he had to do. We might all be surprised how we would react in the same situation.

Is race relations a problem in Ferguson. Yes. Will it be answered easily? Probably not.

On NPR Wednesday, blacks and whites interaction and the affluence of the Atlanta area would probably produce a peaceful protest. In Macon, the sheriff came personally to make sure the protestors were OK.

One obstacle of race relations in this country is that it is assumed it is a Southern problem.

Another obstacle is not outward racism. It is internal prejudice that we may not be aware exists.

I thought the following article was the best of the matter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/opinion/charles-blow-fury-after-ferguson.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Blogs

I have white guilt. We had parallel societies develop in this country due to the exclusion of African-Americans. Then whites complain that African Americans think different.

I would say we owe reparations but that would be a mess with DNA analysis. It is ironic that most Southern whites assume they have black ancestry. I know I probably do.

Plus Southern whites and blacks are not that far in their fundamental views of life. Politics is another matter which is exploited and gerrymandered by corporations and politicians in an attempt to control. I say attempt to control because I believe in the law of unintended consequences.

I read the following article in the British newspaper, The Guardian.

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2014/nov/24/ten-things-we-learned-from-posh-people-inside-tattler

Thank God my ancestors got on the boat and left England.

To recognize there is a problem is significant. Protest and grieve for Michael Brown. There will be more of all races with the common factor of being a member of a group of people with little political power.

5. I give thanks for living in a society that recognizes we need to be ever vigilant of our right to free speech and the importance of the common man.

As President Garfield said, "God loves the common man, he made so many of them."

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