We March ... Do We Know Why?

• Blacks 
• Latino           
• Indian
• Whites             
• Asian

I intentionally don't use the term African American because I don't believe every Black person is an African American. That is the wrong impression to give off and I think it is more racist to use that term than it is to use simply Blacks.  I truly think we have gone too far left trying to be Politically Correct.  

Everyone is marching ... blacks ... and whites.  Oh, you can hear them every day of the week now; walking with signs held in the air like pitch forks and chanting as soldiers going into battle.  All because there are a few bad apples in the baskets.  They want cities to debunk the Police Departments because one officer appears to have used excessive force.  I am not down playing or lessening the pain that these men have dropped on these families at all.  I realize that what has happened is a chargeable crime and these very men would have had no problem if the roles were reversed, charging their victims with murder.  What I am saying is that we NEED our Police Departments.  We don't have the luxury of debunking the Police as a whole because of a few bad officers.

I am not a full time writer by trade.  I work as a front desk clerk at a motel.  The risk of robbery, assault and worse is prominent at all times during a day.  I have come across some really good officers that help me with situations; and I have come across some really bad officers that done nothing to assist with issues.  At no time, have I been ready to completely debunk the whole Police Department because of the bad few that I have dealt with.  We simply have to learn a way to deal with them.  Maybe that in and of itself is a special talent; but it beats the alternative of being mad at the few and the whole that won't do anything to the few.  Eventually, you are mad at the world over something that really isn't that big.

What makes the marches of their Grandparents and Great Grandparents different is their motives.  Their ancestors didn't want the whites to stop what they were doing.  They wanted them to find a way to add them in.  Slavery had already been abolished.  Once Slavery was abolished, that was the las time they marched and asked the whites to stop something.  They then started marching in order to ask for permission to be a part of their communities.  To be seen as a part of the community.

They didn't march the streets with guns and torches ready to burn down City Hall and destroy the businesses they worked at.  They had a purpose and a desire to be a part of society.  Don't stop anything; let them do the same things.  The white people crossed the bridge in Selma; let them do it, too.  The white people can walk the streets of Hall County; why can't the black people.  Simply let them be a part of the white society.  Don't debunk the Police Department; don't stop anything; simply let them into society to be a part of something much bigger.

One thing the Black race knows is church.  You haven't been to a real church service until you go to a black church service (and by the way, I don't know why I call them that, because I have never been turned away from the door of one of their churches for my race ... or any other reason for that matter).  They sing and they preach ... then they sing and preach some more ... and more often than not, they will sing a lot more and preach a lot more.  When you leave, your whole body is trembling in the Holy Ghost.  One thing I am sure they are taught in church is the Parable of the Tares and Wheat.  Tares are like weeds that grow along with the wheat.  But the difference with this weed is that you can't separate it from the wheat and it can't be pulled.  It must grow along with the wheat.  It can't be separated until the harvest.  In order for the wheat to survive, it needs the tares.  The parable is the likeness of people ... everyone is needed until the harvest ... Jesus's harvest.  The people who march, their ancestors were probably taught this lesson many many times in church.  Everyone is needed to make a Nation of people.  There are no challenges ... without challenges, there is no growth ... Everyone is needed to make a whole Nation.

We are going to have bad people in this world.  Sometimes, I think it is dealing with these bad people that make us a stronger person.  I was always told growing up, "be the bigger person and walk away".  I never understood that phrase until I was truly "the much bigger person".  One thing I see in all these now famous recordings is an opportunity for growth.  There was a time during every one of them that one or the other could have simply walked away.  Have you ever had an argument with someone and after you separate, you think of a million more things you could have said.  That is growth.  Every time that happens, you have grown a little more wiser.  Next time it happens, think it all the way through; what do you think the ending of the altercation would have been had you actually said them?  If yours are like mine, it would have gotten truly ugly if I had actually said them.  Be the bigger person and walk a way.  You will find that you will walk away sooner and sooner every time.

Your ancestors wanted to be a part of their communities ... a part of society ... a part of the Nation as a whole.  Please stop the riots and be a part of this great Nation.  Don't let your anger at the few, destroy all the work that your ancestors have worked and struggled so much for.

A Memory of Long Ago

A couple days ago, while I was driving down Stewarts Mill Road; I passed a house with a lot of trees in the yard.  At first, I wondered how cool it must be in that much shade.  When I looked through them, there sat an old lady in a chair with a pen and tablet in her hand.  I was quickly whisked off to a time long gone.  It was 1974 and I was five years old.  I am the small child standing at my Maw’s side watching her write in her tablet. 

Maw was my Great-Grandmother; she came to stay with us after my sister was born.  Oh, how I use

to love to watch her write.  I knew, one day, I was going to grow up and write as much as she did. 

Maw had an address book the size of the yellow pages (for those who remember those); she kept it with her tablet and pen at all times.  Today, we have Facebook to tell us how many friends we have and are able to write to; oh, but back then, if you knew a lot of people, you kept their info in an “address book”.  Every time she came, I had to run out and get a note pad, pen, and address book like hers.  I remember wanting to write so bad my heart ached.  “Maw, can I write to one of your friends, please, pretty please?”, I would cry and plead.  She would then flip through the pretty worn and tattered pages of her address book, looking for a person we both could write.  I had no clue what I was going to say, but someone was going to see it, even if they couldn’t read it. 

When it came time for her to leave, I would be so heart broken.  Only she would have that big, thick address book with addresses to our friends.  I would beg her to leave the address book so I would have someone to write to.  We would sit and copy addresses from her book to my book before she left every time.  I can remember thinking, I can’t wait to get old, because being as old as she was, you have met a lot of people to write and put in your “address book”.

The woman under them trees will never know how grateful I am for such a reminder of a memory of long ago.  Today, I drove down that road again to see if I could find that house or the old lady and could not find either.  I tried to find the front yard with the thick tree covering; nope, could not figure out which house it was.  Strange how memories pop up like that.  Whatever made that one pop up, I hope it keeps doing it.