Racism 101: Are you a Racist?

In the beginning, I was on board. Things happened, things I am not going to get into in this particular post, that made me want to post less and keep a certain amount of distance.

Still, I wanted to believe in the overall cause.

I can no longer make excuses. I can no longer pretend that they represent anything of value.

I just finished speaking with a friend of mine. He was at the Million Hoodie Rally in NYC last night. He was telling me all about how emotional it was. How beautiful it was that people were coming together for something so important. Everything he said sounded amazing and almost spiritual.

My friend is a dreamer. He is a “Glass half full” kind of man. He has a strong belief in Christ and because of this, chooses his words and actions in a way that he believes would make the Lord proud. He believes in leading by example.

I tell you this because one of the topics he and I disagree on is “Anger.” He works diligently to never let his anger show. I believe that to be unhealthy.

When he was finished telling me what he saw and what he did, I told him that I tried to watch the live feed. I told him that I’d only watched for a few minutes because I saw something happen that I could not handle. 

I saw OWS people trying, not to integrate with but to change the direction of the route. I saw OWS people screaming for everyone to go to Zuccotti Park. After seeing this and then seeing the arguments of people saying that this was not about OWS, only to have the OWS people say that it WAS, I became physically ill. If there was ever a time when you should have worked to keep the focus on the actual cause, this was it.

I mentioned this to my friend. He went silent. He said nothing. He said nothing for a long while. I could just hear him breathe.

I knew he was angry.

He tried to remain calm while he explained what he saw. He saw the same thing that I did. Only in a different form and at a different location. He saw OWS people yelling that it wasn’t about race and that it would be best to incorporate this into the OWS movement. This man who I love with my entire heart but often feel is far to kind said…

“They wanted us to be unified but only if unity happened in their yard. They are not good people.”

I’ll leave you with that.