I was behind preparing my next blog post, the second half of a profound experience I had in New York City, when I got side tracked by my move to Seattle and then the atrocities that happened in South Carolina. The point of my blog was to stick to my silly stories, world travels, and my unusual perspective of the world. It was my intention to never be preachy. However, in light of recent events, a spark has struck me and I feel inclined to share it. I know many of my followers will sympathize or at least empathize with what I have to say. To those of whom it may insult, it is not intended as an insult or disrespect. It is an abrasive truth I display via the harsh mirror of who we have become and the roles we are all guilty of contributing to. Indifference is the most dangerous weapon because it does so much harm without the wielder even knowing they hold it. This is for us all.
Chicago – Arkansas, 2001
While in college, I drove my car to my grandmother’s house in Arkansas. My mother scratched the bumper sticker off of my car. The bumper sticker was a confederate flag that had an X through it that read, “You lost. Get over it!” She was afraid I would insult family or get vandalized.
But no, racism isn’t really an issue anymore in the South.
South Carolina – Seattle, 2015
On the streets I now live on, in the most liberal and socially free city in the country, I overheard someone talking about the incident that happened in South Carolina this week. “If it was white straight people, it wouldn’t be as big of a deal,” they said. “Black people and gays keep holding on to the past to their advantage.”
But no, racism isn’t really an issue anymore in America.
Germany, 2004
When I lived in Germany, I had many arguments and lost some friends defending myself when my country decided to vote for George W. for a second term. One of their points of argument led to them passionately yelling at me about the confederate flag being America’s version of the Nazi flag. ‘Yes, it is a part of the American heritage… but no more than the Nazi flag was a part of the heritage of the Germany.’ They have very strict laws for their citizens to even own anything from that era. Legally, the only place to display the Nazi flag anymore is in a museum.
Just because I have a birth certificate labeling me a part of a people where over-priced education doesn’t cure ignorance and laws protect the freedoms for anyone to express hate more than the freedom for a man to love another man, I’m automatically just like them.
Ironically, a few of those same people were adamant about kicking Middle Eastern refugees out of the country because their “smell,” their “religion,” and their “loudness” disrupted the community.
But no, racism isn’t really an issue anymore in the World.
Just because I’ve had the fortune to come after the ugliest and most violent fights for rights have already been fought (hopefully) and I have not yet been shot or arrested for being a gay man in an interracial relationship who doesn’t believe in religion, doesn’t mean that our country knows how to color within the lines it drew between church and state or freedom of speech and freedom to hate. Our people are so scared of change that they tend to wait for the ignorance and hatred we hold on to to just die off with the generation that holds on to it the most.
It’s a sad day when I have to accept the fact that I have to die before I see this ridiculousness stop. It’s a good thing it is not yet a sad day and that I still have the power to write.
I Can't Take Me Anywhere 