Racism

Watching everything that is happening; the horror of a man’s death, the sadness of so many young black men dying, the protests, the anger and the riots and destruction,

I find I’m not surprised by any of it, but sad and angry about all of it. Trump is encouraging the use of the National Guard to help bring order to various cities. I understand the need the city’s have for assistance, but I also remember….

I’m old enough to remember the Mardi Gras riots in Seattle in 2001

I’m old enough to remember the WTO riots of 1999.

I’m old enough to remember the Rodney King riots in 1992

I’m old enough to remember the protests on I5 in Seattle on May 5, 1970

I’m old enough to remember when the National Guard shot four college students at Kent State on May 4, 1970

I’m old enough to remember the Stonewall riots in 1969

I’m old enough to remember the riots after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr died in 1968

I’m old enough to remember a police chief saying “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”, in 1967

This is nothing new. This all has been going on since the beginning of the country. America has never been a white nation but too many people still want to make it one.

It’s ironic that people hate the very people that were kidnapped from Africa against their will starting in 1690. It’s like they blame them for allowing themselves to taken from their country and then having the audacity to stay here and leave descendents.

Racism is a learned behavior. No one is born a racist. Therefore you can unlearn that bias and learn that we all are equal, or should be… no matter what the color of skin, our ancestry, our culture, our religion, our sexual identity, our gender, our age, our size or our ability.