Friday, August 22, 2014
August Happiness Challenge -- Day 22
It makes me sad
I want my President to act Presidential. I want the leader of my party, my country and the free world to lead. That's why I have, at times, been disappointed by Barack Obama. I'm no Obamabot. I believe he should have gone to the site of the BP Oil Spill. He should visit our porous border and stand up for the children entering our country.
One thing he shouldn't do ... can't do, really ... is go to Ferguson, MO.
For the benefit of anyone in 2020 who happens to come upon this post, Ferguson is ground zero for racial unrest since the shooting of Michael Brown. I don't know if the kid grabbed for the gun. I don't know if the cop had no cause to shoot. I do know that the city fathers have handled this abominably and that the sight of rioting and looting and police armed as though they were patrolling Gaza instead of Missouri makes me sick.
I wish our President could go there and say something that will bring us together and help us heal. But he can't. Because he's black.
Isn't that a kick? Our first African-American President can't talk about race.
I remember after he spoke candidly about the Trayvon Martin murder -- where the facts were, to my eyes, more obvious than in the case of Michael Brown -- some people were ridiculously up in arms. Two women that I've cybermet through Saturday 9 were especially hostile and, I feel, representative. One said that if there was rioting after the Martin verdict, it would be the President's fault. The other slagged the POTUS and then posted photos of Trayvon flashing his tattoos and exhaling smoke -- as though body art and pot were death penalty offenses, and that the punishment should be meted out by some cop wannabe on community watch. (You know, the man the 911 operator told to stay in his car.)
That second woman really roasts my chestnuts because she begins her blog with a psalm and is so unbearably sanctimonious about all the many hours she spends at church. I just hate it when people wrap themselves in faith so they can feel warm and cuddly with their racism. I realize that the people with the darkest hearts are the ones who can benefit most from church, but I doubt that she spends time looking at her own sins. If she does, she never posts about it. Instead she concentrates on her litany of complaints.
Consequently I no longer watch the news the way I used to -- which was rather compulsively, I admit. Between Ferguson and ISIS, I just can't. It makes too sad.
One thing he shouldn't do ... can't do, really ... is go to Ferguson, MO.
For the benefit of anyone in 2020 who happens to come upon this post, Ferguson is ground zero for racial unrest since the shooting of Michael Brown. I don't know if the kid grabbed for the gun. I don't know if the cop had no cause to shoot. I do know that the city fathers have handled this abominably and that the sight of rioting and looting and police armed as though they were patrolling Gaza instead of Missouri makes me sick.
I wish our President could go there and say something that will bring us together and help us heal. But he can't. Because he's black.
Isn't that a kick? Our first African-American President can't talk about race.
I remember after he spoke candidly about the Trayvon Martin murder -- where the facts were, to my eyes, more obvious than in the case of Michael Brown -- some people were ridiculously up in arms. Two women that I've cybermet through Saturday 9 were especially hostile and, I feel, representative. One said that if there was rioting after the Martin verdict, it would be the President's fault. The other slagged the POTUS and then posted photos of Trayvon flashing his tattoos and exhaling smoke -- as though body art and pot were death penalty offenses, and that the punishment should be meted out by some cop wannabe on community watch. (You know, the man the 911 operator told to stay in his car.)
That second woman really roasts my chestnuts because she begins her blog with a psalm and is so unbearably sanctimonious about all the many hours she spends at church. I just hate it when people wrap themselves in faith so they can feel warm and cuddly with their racism. I realize that the people with the darkest hearts are the ones who can benefit most from church, but I doubt that she spends time looking at her own sins. If she does, she never posts about it. Instead she concentrates on her litany of complaints.
Consequently I no longer watch the news the way I used to -- which was rather compulsively, I admit. Between Ferguson and ISIS, I just can't. It makes too sad.