After catching up on posts this AM, I'm going to attempt to refrain from posting a manifesto or screed, however, I am compelled to note :
As a teen, I attended a 90% Latino High School, which caused me to immerse myself in the culture because I had to in order to survive .. my best friends were Latino, I dated Latino girls, I hung with these folks, was invited to their homes and became accepted as who I was, a white guy in a brown World .. and I enjoyed it and came to know these folks as hard working, family centric, culturally diverse, honest, accepting .. all things that we as a people generally treasure .. so, to this day, the hate speech that sometimes occurs regarding this faction of ethnicity is disturbing to me ..
After High School, I spent a year in the Central Highlands, Pleiku Province, Vietnam .. a good portion of the patriots I stood next to, the regular Army, not those in charge, were young African Americans .. which, again, I had no choice but to assimilate into .. and I found that my Brothers in Arms bled, cried, missed Home, missed their Families, had many of the same hopes and dreams all of us had .. and I became proud of them and proud of us, as a team .. because we had to set aside any differences, because our very lives depended on it ..
After my stint and eventual Honorable Discharge, and going
thru one of the hardest periods in my life where I spun into a very bad place (if anyone remembers my posts on that, I'm not going into it here) .. when I eventually pulled myself out with the considerable help of an African American young woman, I immersed myself into the music of the Delta .. it pulled me in through it's pain, it's joy, it's rich history going back to the cotton fields and even beyond .. and so, once again, I assimilated myself into the culture and within my circle, became accepted ..
You see, I remember the white only signs .. I remember pretty much all those hateful, demeaning and outright violent bits of a sad History .. where it didn't much matter how good a man you were, or how good a woman .. because the color of your skin was the determining factor .. maybe not everywhere in the Country, but certainly in the South ..
So where am I going with this .. ?? An undercurrent of Racism still exists, and for the most part, we as a Country don't seem to want to admit it .. but it seems to me, like an alcoholic or an addict, admission and honest discussion is the first step to understanding ..
Symbols invoke feelings .. the American Flag invokes emotion for me at a personal level .. I served under it, my ancestry is one of Immigration .. who came thru Ellis Island longing for the freedom so sadly lacking in where they came from ..
I volunteer at a local Homeless Shelter / Soup Kitchen primarily used by people of color .. I listen to their stories .. and, if I were a Religious man, I would say "There, but for the Grace of God go I" .. because we are all responsible in a way, for each other .. is that not the fundamental rock all Faith is built on .. ??
Symbols can and do also divide us .. the good news being we live in a Land where we have the Freedom to express .. sometimes, however, expression means doing the right thing ..