Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Monday ADD Irregulars, WSN Aficionados, Friends, Refugees, Early Birds, Later Dayers, Conversants, Lurkers, Phamily, Dawn Patrol, Misfits, Triggeratti, Beautiful Bigots, Fascinating People, Seekers of Civility and Sanity and all you Common Sensers in the Iversen-verse! Blessed MLK Day to all in the States and any who celebrate it elsewhere.
The Sins of the Past often create the new ones that plague us. The evil of bigotry (actual bigotry not Triggeratti inspired humor bigotry) has plagues humanity from the beginning. As soon as we could identify others as not us there was the specter of bigotry and racism. I confess that I am adverse to using the word racism because it has been so abused in recent times to almost render it a useless words that just communicates offense or hurt feelings from the Fragiles. I have no problem talking about bigotry, humans can be bigoted for anything. "Race" - there are only humans with culture and complexion - race is a fluid word to identify familiarity and recognize distinguishing difference, what one does with the familiarity and differences does more to reveal character than anything else. Sadly groups and entire cultures can encourage and accept the worse of behaviors and act with profound malice toward fellow human beings.
Dr. King's wish for a time when we are judged by the content of our character rather than other factors is even more remote than when he uttered it 60 years ago. Slavery and oppression are terrible realities. They have plague humanity from the beginning and virtually no culture of antiquity was free of the acceptance of slavery. Since I didn't live 2000 years ago I can say how they thought about slavery beyond the fate of the unfortunate. Today you are free, after tomorrow's war you could well be a slave if not dead. Your ethnicity didn't matter for squat. Slavery had little to do with you complexion and everything to do with your misfortune. Still a horrible fate but perhaps not further complicated by culturally promoted bigotry/racism that unfolded during the age of colonialism.
"Not part of us" often emboldens individuals to see others as adversaries or inferiors rather than as neighbors. All of our fellow WOKENSTIENS do not see the non-Woke as neighbors, they either see them as targets for proselytism or retribution. I don't know how they make that call, but that seems to be their method these days. Assimilate or suffer the consequences and some of you non-woke are not suitable for assimilation.
Bigotry - you can possess an bias against groups or individuals for any reason whatsoever. Irrational, unfounded bias open the door to bigotry. Not believing someone who is a habitual liar is not bigotry, it is wise. There are reasonable and rational bias based on identifiable behavior's and attitudes that are worthy of our criticism and rejection. They should be adopted with careful and deliberate thought and not the result of surrendering to the mob and its group-think and herd-feelings.
Neighbors - People have historically hated those nearest to them not identified as them. It is great to love someone who is not a perceived threat to your family, village or culture and far to easy to hate those who are seen in the opposite light. Last century is filled with countless examples of virtual neighbors turning on one another between and within nations. World Wars, Civil Wars and Revolutions have all added to the body count of the last century. Some people virtually indistinguishable by those outside the conflict happily killed each other for whatever cause motivated their cause.
The sins of the past are often used to create the new ones that plague. That there was bigotry in the past in beyond question, but it wasn't only racial bigotry. There was plenty based on religion and class to fill graveyards to overflowing. The grievance mongering of today cannot undo the sins of the past. There is no amount of atoning that can undo history, personal or collective, there is only learning and striving to do better. While we might be capable of making amends to the living, there is nothing we can do for the dead except to not repeat the evils of the past that green-lighted malice and hatred.
I pray we can realize Dr. King's dream. I am doubtful. Our universities are cesspools of arrogance and grievance. That is a mental and emotional contaminate that is almost impossible to unravel. Other elements of the Cabal happily promote CRT and WOKE ideology as the new acceptable bigotry that is for the enlightened to wield against the oppressors of yesteryear. "We will right the wrongs of the past by creating new ones today!"
You are my neighbor. You have a name and history, dreams and fears, that are worth knowing if the content of your character is good. We can talk about the good on some other occasion, but without some commonly understood boundaries of conceptual good, we will happily believe the lies and mistake them as truths.
