Please note that this posting is a tad lengthy, but it comes from the heart and the depths of my soul. Please have the patience to read it through. Thank you all.
Do you remember when some adult in your life, be it teacher, parent, relative, would see that 'smirk' on your face and instruct you to immediately wipe it off your face. If not, they promised to do the job themselves. Perhaps that is why one does not see so many of those smirks, those nasty facial expressions which expressed contempt for you and your thoughts and values and the presumed superiority of the 'smirker'.
But wait, for I believe I spoke too soon. We now have a chief smirker in our midst, the smirk which I truly wish I could reach out and wipe off that smug nauseating face, the one which exudes contempt for us all as he pulls the mask over so many and grinds down our democracy - day by day, hour by hour, misdeed after misdeed, outrageous behavior, one after the other. And then he smirks.
Check out his pictures. In many he is caught in his ever more common Hitler pose, arm raised, mouth open, eyes squinted with dislike for all, other than himself, and one can just about hear the shouting, the ranting, the lies, the hatred spewing forth just by looking at that picture.
In the other common photo pose he is smirking, that twisted version of a grin, a truly snarky smirk, one which shouts out the contempt that man has for all rules, for all morals, for all of us. It is that smirk which sets up an itch in the palms of my hands and I wonder. Were there no adults in his life to teach him to remove that smirk from his face? Were there no adults in his life who bothered or were able to do that, to give him the proper stance for life, how to relate to people? Or is it that the man is a sociopath, with no regard for morals, for the rights of others, not understanding the emotions of most people, nor caring, and a terrible sense of conceit and importance?
I wonder. I wonder how we have reached this point. I wonder how we have taught ourselves to either admire his creepiness or to grow a hard turtle like shell, all the better to convince ourselves that all is well. We shield ourselves from the now daily grind of a growing injustice, of a growing openly expressed hatred and prejudice, an acceptance that oh, yes, all will be well - someday - and in the meanwhile, let me hide.
What concerns me is also the growing mimicking of his smirking and the smirk attitude. I might be pilloried for the next few statements, but fair is fair and right is right. It is true that Black people all over the world have been the targets of prejudice. They have been enslaved. They have had to fight for their civil rights here, in the country that should have long ago stopped that behavior - and yet, here we are. But yet, yes, here we are. We have Black and Brown people in all ranks of life. We have had them as bosses, as coworkers, as doctors and advisers, financial consultants, neighbors and friends.
We forget, so many of us, that if we are opening up the channels of communication, telling the truths about history, then all is fair. We had Black tribes in Africa raid, capture, and sell members of other tribes to white slavers. We have, today, the continued enslavement in lots of countries, particularly, in Asia and Africa, oppressed by their own brethren or by political opponents. Kidnapping for the purpose of becoming sex slaves or child soldiers is slavery, even if it is Black on Black.
Economic slavery apparently is alive and well, including within this wonderful country of ours. Apparently there are also people who have participated in a system wherein young children are imported here under subterfuges and then used as household slaves, working all hours of the day and night sleeping on floors, fed scraps, abused in so many ways. Much of the treatment of migrant workers is just as shameful. Yet how many of this undocumented class of people are taken advantage of by their own neighbors and friends, charged outrageously for dangerously unsafe accommodations?
And within oppressed groups or not oppressed groups there is prejudice galore to so many others. There is rampant anti Semitism among Black activists, as they forget who marched alongside them in Selma, as Freedom Riders, being beaten, jailed, and even killed for this. Anti Semitism is a scourge on the face of this earth and it seemingly never dies, becoming a useful go to tool for those who need a scapegoat for some goal, to shunt righteous claims of wrongdoing onto the wrong people.
Thus, it seems that not a one group or another is innocent of misbehavior, of prejudice, of hatred for one or another. It seems as if all of us intend to lay blame on everyone else, that is, not on ourselves. But change must come from within. Change must come in the attitudes we have. Why all the shooting and deaths of innocents? Is someone forcing them to shoot guns at children? Why the ignoring of historic truths? Why can we not accept and understand that being human means making errors, some of them awful indeed. From the forefathers of the Bible to present day leaders, to important historical figures, to Martin Luther King, Jr., to my hero, JFK, one and all have gone wrong somewhere along the track of life. So have we all. We need to understand and accept that. We so desperately need to do that.
So, yes, I understand the anger at the statues of people who are manifestly not heroic in some of their behavior. But truly, all statues? All have gone astray at some point and it is not for us to ignore the failings of us all. Let us expend our energies on the fixing of society rather than on statues. Let us solve this gun problem that is so manifestly an American problem. Let us acknowledge the fact that prejudice exists among all groups, no matter the color, the ethnicity, the religion or lack thereof, or whatever defines us as people of earth.
Let us be open to understanding. Let us realize that there are more than even two sides to behaviors of people and if we strive to understand better, perhaps we will be better. An example. Yes, the refrain of All Lives Matter began as a snide reaction to the phrase Black Lives Matter. But listen hard to the people who are also saying it in a different context, with a different attitude. Yes, Black lives matter, but so do all lives matter. All, no matter the differences between us, no matter the differentials we all stress. We are all humans, with interchangeable needs and desires, with hopes for our families, with dreams of success and a better life for all, with an equal chance at life. But simply directing - or misdirecting - that anger does no one any good. In fact, it does the opposite.
If we look with an open mind at the lives of others perhaps we will understand better. As a woman, as a Jew, I claim no 'white privilege'. There are many who claim I am not 'white'. I agree. I actually am a composite of many shades of white and pink. I, too, had to struggle to make my way in life. For many reasons. Before and after there was slavery in this country, my people were being burned alive, crucified, battered and beaten to death, deprived of any hopes for a better life, for freedom to move, to own property, to enter all professions, to be assured of a home. We all struggle, some more than others, but if we realize that struggle is part of life, if we all work together to even the field, though it will never be perfect, then might we hope? Might we hope for a better life for all? Maybe.
Black lives matter. So do all lives matter. So does the truth matter. So does the proper focus matter. So does cooperation matter. So does stressing our similarities and understanding and celebrating our differences, all enriching the human pool. A tad Pollyannish? Probably, but I guess I am an old lady who has never lost that idealistic dreamer streak within. And why should I?
What I am sure of is that we need to rid ourselves of the burden of smirkers, their allies, their lapdogs, their morally vacant adherents. Get them out of office, of public life and never allow them to return. We need to return to our values and wipe all those late growing smirks off our faces. You see, no one escapes the costs of hatred, of smirking, of snarkiness. None of us have evaded the cracks eating away at our foundation thanks to the smirking crowd.
Want to be well and stay safe? Want to get rid of those blasted but necessary masks? Want to live a life again not scorched by the acid of hate? Then look within yourselves and decide what and which way is to reach the best bottom line. Then VOTE and vote these wrong doers of life out and away.
We are better than this. We just need to dig a bit deeper and harder. We can and we must.
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