IF WE JUST TRIED A LITTLE HARDER

With the Mueller Investigation closing, I took some time to reflect on where we are as Americans.  This is not a pro left or pro right post. This is a pro US post, so please no trolling. I’ll just delete or block you. 

We have been in a pretty dark place since 2016. Sure. Some of the blame can be laid at the feet of the President. I just don’t agree that he bares the loins share for what we see now. 

I’ve seen blood relatives stop speaking to each other. Close friends turn into enemies, people’s freedoms attacked, and partisan politics is what drives that car.  

But it is not new. It was happened during the Obama presidency as well, it just seems that the machine attacking the current president has stronger batteries than the one that attacked him.  And it is in overdrive, causing the erosion of free thought, free speech, civility, and reason. 

With this investigation coming to a close, I pray in my heart that whichever way it goes, we can put it behind us, stop the lies, fear mongering and divisive tactics.  I don’t like seeing anyone being attacked or shamed because of their skin color.  Any one who experienced something so cruel (like me), with any decency in their heart would never want that for anyone else.  But it seems people are getting a rise out of it.  It gives them the wrong kind of sense of empowerment to me that only serves to breed more pain. 

I’ve always said there is two ways to kill a man. One is to mortally wound him, the other is to silence him.  

For me, I’ll take a physical death over an internal one.  If you stop my heart my soul will be with my father in heaven and departed loved ones, so I do not fear that. 

Yet as we speak, murders are happening all over our college and high school campuses, in our streets, on social media and news outlets that have lost all objectivity on both sides of the political spectrum. 

It is figuratively and literally creating one of the most dangerous atmospheres in our history. The poisonous fruits of this have yet to yield, but it’s coming.

Americans, I know we have different beliefs and opinions, but there is a time where what we had in common, was respect for freedoms; even if we did not agree with the display of it.

I remembers debating about politics as a young Black Democrat with a White Republican and it not developing into the urge to harm them.

I remember disagreeing with fellow Democrats, and not being called a n- or a Tom.

Because then, we tried harder to respect each other in spite of how different we were.

What I’m seeing today is Americans, figuratively showing up with their swords for the sole purpose of wounding one another.

From a young woman losing her life in Charlottesville, to MAGA hat wearers being punched, chased, and slandered. To law enforcement agencies being compared to Nazis by government officials who are supposed to support Law and Order. To blacks being assassinated because they are brave enough to have an opinion different than what is prescribed for them.

The remedy for all of this is simple: we must try a little harder. I know it is human to hate when things don’t go out way, but like no other time in history since the civil rights era, we all need to tap into super nature.

I’ll start. To every American. Whether you are left, right, Black, White, straight, gay, transgender, Christian, Muslim, or any other faith, I respect your right to exist, think, speak, and to voice your conscience.

I don’t have to agree with you or sacrifice my values to love you, and you don’t have to do with me either.

Can we just try this?