all I can hear echoing in my head are the words "when will we ever learn"?
That, pitted against the goings-on in Arizona; seeing racism and hatred legislated into law instead of out of it for one of the second time in less than a year... Though they backed off a bit this afternoon, re-writing a bit of it, I still wonder when they'll start pinning the little yellow stars on people; when they'll decide they don't like old bald guys with freckles...am I next?
Since I have little bits of everything in me, are we going to send my arms back to France and my legs back to Ireland? Does my nose get to stay for the bit of Indian blood in me?
I've been tired for a long time of those who assume every Latino/a they encounter must be an illegal...or every time they see an Vietnamese or Hmong that they must be a "boat people".
There's very damn few of us in this country who's origins are "from here"! Mine are from France, Ireland, England, with some Native American and probably some African mixed in. Each time I hear those words "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" that are etched on that beautiful lady in the harbor who greeted some of those ancestors of mine, I'm grateful to the one who put them there; his neighbors probably wanted to lynch him!
I worked for someone once who was 2nd generation Polish-American. His grandparents had immigrated here just before the turn of the century to escape religious persecution in Poland. With children born both in the old country and the new one, the children were quick enough to pick up the new language, though Mom and Dad never learned enough to be fluent. They managed to pass their citizenship test, but my foreman told me no one spoke anything at home but Polish as he was growing up.
During WW1 they operated a bakery and grocery store; more than once the bigots in the small Kansas town they lived in broke the windows out and painted racial slurs on the front of their storefront, not realizing that Polish and German wasn't the same thing...
How far are we from that again?
How far are we from the interment camps we put American born Japanese in during WW2?
Shall we just start burning those we don't like, like we did at Salem?
When will they decide I'm next on their list?
May this beautiful spring weekend be kind to each of you!
alan
11 comments:
Hmmm, if you are next on the list then I must have lucked out by them missing this sweet and adorable half-demoness several levels of hate back. Go team "slipped through the cracks."
Well spoken alan, I have been threatened with being burned several times in this life time.. they do not learn.. they can not see.. and they will cry out, when they are singled out, as the next victim.. and you know there is always a next victim..
naukishtae
A very sad and well-written rant, alan. We will never learn. Somehow competition always triumphs over cooperation; hatred over compassion. I'm not sure why it is that way, but it may have something to do with who collects the guns and who doesn't.
If only the world was full of more kind hearted compassionate people like you!
The world would be a much better place & we would all learn far more from our mistakes.
Great respect to you, my wise & tolerant friend.
As someone better than me wrote "if you tolerate this them your children will be next".
Always great stuff Alan. Thanks for the reminder.
Aloha
"that beautiful lady in the harbor" will she get sent back to where she came from too perhaps?
I think that the story is the same wherever you go in the world, perhaps when they colonise Mars they'll make a better start, but I doubt it.
"An inadequate underwater cement job during the deep water drilling process is emerging as a potential cause of this devastating oil spill."
Who was the contracter for this job?
"In a statement Friday Halliburton confirmed that is was the "cementer"
hired to do the job and completed it about 20 hours before the explosion"
Will we ever get a way from the Bush/Cheney revolution?
It seems absurd that they should have been exempted from the obligation to put in a shut-off valve.... gosh...
A friend Over Here was shouted at recently, told to "F*** off back to Poland". It's not that she is Polish, but her appearance was apparently deemed too 'smart' for her neighbourhood, which is the sort of place where the locals wear leisure clothes and fluffy slippers to the supermarket.
I understand the crisis we the people here in the US are in and this falls under the umbrella of trans people as well. So many bigots out there that we have to cover and hide so not to be ejected as well. The Mexican community is overwhelming Alan, and to top it off the US wants us to learn the second language. My Irish great grandparents had to learn English when they came here, there was no second language.
I am not a bigot of any kind, and I didn't serve my country to have to learn to speak and understand Spanish. If you come to the USA I believe you should speak English. Also no free medical, hell I am a citizen and I don't get free medical nor unemployment.
Time for me to step down off the box, I said my say and really I was mild.
I echo Debbie K's sentiments.
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