BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM, SORT OF
Cindy Maddera
"Open to everyone"
My brain is clogged up with science talks and all my thoughts and feelings of being in Portland. The good news is that I'm not going any where for a while, so I have plenty of time to process all of it. In the meantime, I have unpacked my suitcase, finished the laundry, dusted the house and uploaded over three thousand pictures to Amazon. I'm looking into an external hard drive before I delete them all from this computer. I'm acclimating. By acclimating, I mean I'm going through the motions of being back to normal and I'm relying on someone else to think and make decisions for me. Michael determined the meal plan for this week and made the grocery list. He's done a really good job. Actually, I think he's just happy that he kept everyone alive while I was gone. Four chickens, one cat and one dog is a lot.
I realized at one point yesterday that it's been one year since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson MO. Todd and I had several discussions on race while I was visiting him. None of those conversations ended with any kind of answer. I thought that things would improve, that Michael Brown would be the tragedy that would make people wake up and pull it together. Then I thought that things only seemed to be worse. Todd brought up a really good point about this. He said that it's because we have instant knowledge of what is happening. He's right. Everyone has a cell phone with a camera on it. It's not that there's been this sudden increase in violence against blacks by police. This is a problem that has been going on for way longer than it should be. The reason it looks like more is only because I've finally opened my eyes to it.
Life isn't fair. We cannot change the cards we are dealt. These are sayings that we have all heard. But what about justice. Life shouldn't be unjust. Life shouldn't be about constantly watching your back because the people who are supposed to protect and serve apparently took an oath to protect and serve only white people. I do not want my tax dollars being spent on salaries for those kinds of police officers. All lives matter. Race isn't a reason to treat this person better than the other. Race is the thing that makes each of us unique and beautiful. Race contains our histories and is something to be proud of. Lately, I'm not so proud of my own race. It's like we've just kept this perpetual ball of anger, hate and discrimination rolling throughout history.
I don't want to be part of the generation that stops that ball from rolling on because the ball should have been stopped generations ago by those who came before me. We have self driving cars. We walk around with tiny computers in our pockets. We've eradicated smallpox for God's sake. It's long past time to eradicate discrimination based on race or anything for that matter. Except we haven't. It's been left up to us to stop that perpetual ball of anger, hate and discrimination from rolling any further. By now that ball is too large and moving too fast for me to stop it alone. So I'm asking help from you guys. Do you think we could all maybe work together on this?