Friday

8 July 2016

From the Discussions With Friends and Acquaintances Files
"I'm tired of all of it right now. What gets me is that I've had a hard life, too. Minimum wage jobs. Food stamps. I was homeless for 3 years. I drove a shit car and I got pulled over a couple times a month for fix-it tickets. I struggled for half my adult life. Why is my hard life less important just because I'm white?"
It's not less important. Yes, everyone suffers at some point in their life. Statistically (the last time I checked, but it's been a while), there are more white people than black people on welfare. I wandered around San Francisco a bit this week, and the obvious homeless I saw were overwhelmingly white.

But here's the thing.

You and I?

Our struggles will never be because we are white.

It really is that simple. Everyone will experience hard times. Everyone struggles. Everyone has a moment in their life when they hit their knees because it doesn't seem like they can take one more thing going wrong. But you and I will never face those struggles with the reason being the color of our skin.

I will never be pulled over for driving while white.
I will never be tracked around a store because I am white.
I will never have to fear for my life when engaging someone in authority because I am white. 
"All lives matter, plain and simple."
Well yeah, all lives matter. But the truth is that right now, we all just seem to accept that white lives matter, and the divide is becoming so strong that a whole lot of people are rightly standing up to remind us all that black lives matter, too.

It sucks that we need reminding.

It's shameful that the message has to be shouted to be heard.

It's horrible that we didn't move past this need decades ago.

But here we are.

5 comments:

Random Felines said...

Well said....

Just Ducky said...

Yes, ALL lives matter.

Mark's Mews (Marley, Lori, Loki, and Binq) said...

I had a hard start in adult life too. 5 guys in a 2 bedroom apartment, stugglig the meet the rent. Rouches so bad that we turned on the kitchen light at night and waited for them to fall off the ceilings and scurry away. And we had the place clean!

I worked for minimum wage for years and when I finally became the manager of a quarter of a department store I got (get ready for this) a 10 cent per hour raise!

I took the Civil Service test in 1976 and scored 100% is all 6 categories. Based on the results (race blind) I was offerred entry-level positions in Finance, Computer Manafement, and Administrative Support.

I chose Administrative Support and our office seemed equally white and minority. Quite frankly, I felt very comfortable there. I would like to think that my advancement beyond that was due to my skills, but I will never really know.

The past and current problem of minorities being selectively killed by police angers me. It wrong. I am personally afraid of police now.

This is not how it should be. Things have to change. Police who essentially murder innocent people HAVE to be charged, indicted, and convicted. The "Lisence To Kill" police culture will not stop until murderers are convicted and executed.

Lucy Furr said...

You always seem to find the right words. Rock on!

Saku said...

I so agree with your post. While I'm an outside observer (Canadian), we have similar issues here; our blacks are the indigenous peoples of our country.

I fear for the future, and only hope more rational minds will prevail.