I don’t know if I should write this or not. I’m in one of those moods today. One of those reflective, helplessly-wondering-if-anything-will-change moods, as I look around me at what is going on in our world today. I’m really feeling at my lowest, emotionally bruised and battered by what goes on in our society. When do I wonder will it change? When will there be no worry as to what I am? Or who you are? Or what are they?
I look at my children and wonder if I can adequately prepare them for this world of ours because it’s a cruel world out there. I look at my son and wonder if he will meet the same fate as others like him just because of the color of his skin? Or my daughters who are much paler in comparison to him and wonder if they will be looked at as passably acceptable just because they are fair? Or will even my own deny them just because they’re not exactly defined?
I used to think that I could prepare them for just about anything that they will meet out there. For anything that will be thrown at them by the ignorant few.
Our world is so caught up by the color of our skins and not by what is inside a person’s mind. When will it not matter? When will there not be a racial divide? Can you not see that this issue is not just black and white or white and black? It is everyone’s issue no matter who you are or where you’re from. Do we ourselves not create more tension and more racial divide because we are forgetting how much of a Diaspora our world is? What about those who are neither black nor white? Do they feel invisible because they are not talked about too?
Someone is always “screaming” racism or being the “victim”….or playing the race card. Does anyone ever stop and wonder why? Why, like a sore that cannot heal, racism is so rampant amongst us? Why the powers that be, from both ends of this color Diaspora, do not change their own ways? They seem to reinforce how things used to be by the constant in-fighting, pointing fingers at each other and playing the blame game.
Is it not time to let go? Is it not time to say let us not forget but let us move forward and not repeat the cycles of our past. After all, what the leaders and people of our world didn’t know then, we surely do know now.
What is gained from living in the past? What is gained from us cussing at each other? Let us all not fall into that cycle of ignorance.
If our world continues to perpetuate this attitude of dismal discontent, then surely there will be no hope for our children. I know it’s not a perfect world. I know that there will somehow still be one person out there who will forever live in the past and will strive hard to keep us there.
But if one person can do make a difference then our children will stand a fighting chance! I have hope because I know there are people out there who think the way I do. There are a lot of these people; friends, acquaintances, and even strangers, around me.
They are people who are progressive and hope for the good of our country and its people. Of course all of our problems won’t be fixed overnight, and we will still fight amongst ourselves and disagree with whoever is in the Presidency; but we can surely have a better world because of those people who try to live their own lives by example and make a difference in their own world.
This difference is something for me to hang on to with hope for the future of all our children and their children.