America is crying. It is shattered, confused, riven by tragedy and concern. It is rife with confusion. How did we get here and how do we move forward? Can we move forward? Or are we stuck in a revolving rut, tragedy returning every few decades when the pot simmers to boiling, overflows and scalds all in its path?
The anger of the late 60's, the rejection of America as a guiding light, the violence - I had hoped we were done with this, that we were grown up enough to know that violence does not win, but rather turns away those who would support the protests, its causes, but now, instead, are turning away. But from whom and from what? That is the question and the answer is a pivot point for America, a decision that will affect decades into the future, with conflict already laid in.
I believe I understand the anger on both sides. Americans are aggrieved, by violence, by violations of rights, by the imposition of capital punishments on whims and violence. There is anger that though progress has been made, why are we still talking in terms of progress three quarters of a century after the summer of the Freedom Riders? Why are we negating the deaths of those who were slaughtered in this cause, including many Jewish boys and girls from up North who saw this as a continuing battle of hatred and prejudice, of death, two decades after the Holocaust when over 6,000,000 of their fellow Jews were killed in the name of hate, in the face of dastardly excuses and glowering, crazed faces. Several gave their lives for this cause.
On the other hand, there are those haters who cannot ever move on. Hate is the only thing keeping them going. They, too, are deprived, of dreams, of hope, of education and a future for their kids, of medical care, of a surety of rights, constantly facing unemployment, hunger, homelessness and an all pervading acidic fear that eats away at them and their balance. They, too, suffer, and they, too, need to vent and they vent, as do most people, on those they feel are even lower than they are - or should be! Why, they feel, are they stuck in that awful rut, or shoved back in, when those 'below' are doing well, mixed couples and kids roaming around, black faces showing up in high positions, of authority and wealth, owning businesses, raising children with dreams for them.
The sad part is that both are right and both are wrong. All, ALL, should be entitled to the rights of Americans, of humans. All deserve the dreams, the hopes, a chance at a future, but when the leadership of the country fails us, we are left only with implosions and explosions. We tout the law even as we break it. We tout fairness even as we are manifestly not fair. We push authority and the law, even as that same authority breaks the law, or violates its spirits, and blood is shed, on both sides.
To watch two videos was to see horror for all. The horrific video of a man slowly being killed, his literal breath stolen from him, and then to see the video of a policewoman being dragged for several feet along a street, to see an older policeman dive in to try to rescue her, to see her body pulled hither and thither, pulled in both directions and the pain and injuries she suffers, well, they were both horrific, threatening to the fabric of our nation,
To put it bluntly, we are either a nation of compassion and law, or we are simply a group of people with a very thin veneer on our surface and it cracks under a bit of extra pressure. It revives our more savage traits and we scream on both sides of our rights, our justifications for violence. The true answer? No violence, as tempting as it might be. No violence, for it negates the worth of the protests, allowing the 'enemy' to 'prove' how right they are. It is self defeating - on both sides of the issue and we only delve deeper into the cesspool, that quicksand of filth, that which allows us no exit.
We have no leader. We have only a cowardly, greedy, demented man who incites violence and then hides from it. We have a man with ambitions, strong desires to be King, or at the very least, the founder of a new and perverted political dynasty, with the rule of America being placed within their twisted custody. We have a society split so deeply, so unfairly, that I and many others despair of it ever being healed, at the very least papered over enough to allow for discussions and forward movement.
We are further attacked by the natural world which we have greatly destroyed in our arrogance and carelessness, and even selfish desire. We are sickened unto death by new plagues, by diseases that move from animals to us, a fit ending to us all? Or is there any chance, any wisp of hope, that we can find in the midst of all this tragedy?
Can we hold back, pull back? Can we look at each other across that bottomless divide and figure out how to bridge it? Can we, dare we, fix things, have the patience to work it out? Can we put away the hate inciting politicians who have lost all morality, lost sight of values and ethics, and slurp their fill and more at the troughs of the public?
G-d knows it sounds as if it is hopeless, a task of gargantuan parameters, a festering, endless, as old as time issue. I believe we can if we but will it to be so and wade into the battle not with fists, but with justice, with understanding, with proper leadership, with the injection of hope and the power of dream once again.
The fact of the matter is if we do not struggle here to do the right thing, painful as it is, on all sides of the matter, then we are lost. We will never Be Well nor Stay Safe. One can never hide from hatred. It eats through everything, its acid scars and destroys. Can we not look in another direction? Please? Else, there is nothing left, nothing that most of us have any desire for, our dreams crushed, our children doomed to a gray, dreary, harsh life - all of them, no matter color, ethnicity, religion or anything. Only money. Only power. Only selfishness. Only a presumed power. Only an ending doomed from the beginning. No Wellness. No Safety. For no one. For anyone.
Let stop for a moment or two and listen. Listen to the cries. Listen to the pain. Listen to what your true soul, unblemished, is telling you. Listen to the warnings and heed them. There is no other way.
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