God Dem!

Everyday People

We're raising three children. There's nothing like hearing yourself parroted back by a three year old; it gives you an absolute time definition of when you morphed into your oh so tragically un-hip parents. Holding children's constant, absorbing gaze forces you to set up a filter for your imperfections. Screen out the cussing and bawdy entendres, and there you are, stuck inside your parents, wondering just what in the hell happened.

One of the benefits (why, half full, funny you should ask) of this self imposed screen is that it provides a ready made opportunity for self improvement. Instead of muttering "Murphy doesn't know shit", you can regale yourself with "Murphy exhibited his usual infantile cognitive powers of assessment on this one." See, your vocabulary is improving already.

We use this internal screen because we love our children. Most of us hated the "do as I say, not as I do" style of parenting, having rebelled so successfully against it in the 60's and 70's. I know I am determined that I not be a pushover, but that I will be honest and accessible to my children. I want them to have the best base possible to build on. Their lives and choices are theirs. It's my hope that they will land farther and stronger from me than I landed from my parents.

Part of the reason this is so important to me is because of race. Growing up, I lived with a parent who was a card carrying member of the NAACP in the early 1960's, in the SOUTH, and a parent who basically thought that was a load of crap. The interesting thing was, though, that seeing the world through the eyes of the civil rights activist gave me the opportunity to understand seeing it through the eyes of racist. It's hollow, you know. What's interesting is how deliberately they play it. Bennett's remarks last week are a perfect example.

This country has a long history of defining abilities by race. We love our stereotypes. We invoke everything from brains to penis size in our idiotic endeavor to quantify the abilities of the human mind by the packaging that surrounds it. We persist in "normalizing" these labels in an effort to bind cohesiveness through hate. If each decision is defended by assumptions that "everybody" understands, perhaps it's the sense of inclusion, of being more than you really are, that appeals.

I won't be joining the club.

When we abandon our filters, the necessary mechanism we create as adults to force us to better ourselves, the potential for improvement wanes. Until we strive, unified in the belief each life and mind is valuable, our country can NEVER reach it's potential.

Accepting the value of each life gives us the opportunity, for the first time in the history of this country, to cease to divide ourselves. If we choose not to impede the progress of some in order to grease the wheels for a few, we stand uniquely posed to capitalize of the massive gains America made in the 20th century.

Katrina is our wake up call. If we embrace what we want our individual selves to become, the better person we filter to, then this is the moment to right racial wrongs and set the course for the best damn country in the world.

Renounce assumptions. Hold hypocrisy to the light. Don't be the first to blink.

We're all grown up now. The time for division is over.

posted by Jet @ 3:44 AM