Thoughts on Charlottesville Virginia
Hello everyone,
It's with a heavy heart that I bring you this post today. Specifically, I want to shed some helpful thoughts on the tragic event that took place over the weekend in Charlottesville Virginia.
First a little background
I am from a rural city in North Carolina just about three hours south east of Charlottesville Virginia. I personally have never visited Charlottesville, but I have been to many cities in Virginia as a youth. In my heart, I am still a southern boy. But I have northern parents. This is important to note because I was home schooled by a Mother raised in Queens New York. However, I also admired the culture of the local celebrities and my peers in the south. My mother's personality and mannerisms could not be any more different than that of our neighbors.I first noticed this difference after a dispute between my mom and our neighbor. This silly feud they had caused my mother to erect a 6-foot fence on the side of our property so that the two didn't have to look at each other. To this day, I never knew what the feud was about, but I was now called the "Yankee" kid by the locals in my neighborhood. And my mother called the locals, "inbred Rednecks".
While this feud existed, myself and other neighborhood children were caught in the middle. The war never ended, there were just a ceasefire and a huge 6-foot fence that acted as a demilitarized zone.
I felt like I was stuck in the middle. To be transparent, my parents didn't fight with many people. And to my recollection, they just had feuds with two families in the neighborhood. But even as a child, I could tell that my parents and their world view/culture were very different than that of our neighbors.
Identity
Where I was from, we had pride in being called a Redneck. For this silly word was a badge we wore proudly. To me, it meant, we liked loud cars, loud country rock music, hunting, guns, deep fried BBQ Chicken etc. These examples were my definition of the south and I wore my Redneck badge proudly. The confederate flag was a symbol of my culture and I would someday get a flag of my own.But then something strange happened, I remember my mother first teaching me about the civil war. The books I read told me something completely different than what my best friends told me. For instance, my school books told me that the war was about slavery and my friends told me it was about government oppression. This perplexing situation confused me. I remember thinking, If being a Redneck meant I favored slavery, then count me out. I had friends who were black. Both my parents had friends who were black, and until I read about the Civil War, I never thought about anyone with a different skin color being different in any way. While others in my family were watching Power Rangers and playing Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo, I was having a complete culture identity breakdown. Do I side with my mom and her school books or do I side with my best friends?
This sounds silly, but I remember while I was contemplating which version of history was accurate, I was thinking about my own personal experiences with people of different skin colors. In particular, I did experience mean black kids calling me racial slurs on the basketball court. I thought it was completely unfair that these mean black kids were allowed to call me "honky" and "cracker". But I couldn't retaliate with an equally hateful word in my opinion. I knew that the "N" word was a no, no back then. But that is all it meant to me at the time. I didn't even think about how hurtful it could be. To this day, I still don't think I'll ever know. But do keep in mind that this wasn't far after the movie "White men can't jump" came out.
That darn movie made me personally feel less-human because, "white boys can't jump" was a constant chant on the basketball court. In a very small way, that chant erupted some deep pain and anger in me because that chant was used to discriminate against me when it came time for other children to pick teams. when I didn't get picked, I didn't think it was because of my basketball skills or lack thereof. I thought I wasn't being picked to be on the basketball team because I was white. oddly enough, this made me think about the Civil War and where I stood.
Insult to injury
- In addition to the somewhat humorous discrimination just mentioned, when I first learned about affirmative action my key takeaway was that it is a system designed to not hire someone like me.
- Every year I see Tech companies hold celebrations and spend millions of dollars bragging about "Diversity". But to me and many others, that event and it's celebration just means that the companies are celebrating how many non-white people they hired.
- I am told that I have privilege because I am starting at a different spot than most African American's in this country. Aside from already disputing that idea, telling a young Joey who just didn't get picked for a basket ball team he has privilege, didn't make me feel privileged in any way. It just made me angry.
- Google the word, "minority scholarships", these programs still don't make me feel privileged.
- Black Lives Matter walking around New York City chanting, "Pigs In A Blanket, Fry ‘Em Like Bacon". And then, President Obama defended the Black Lives Matter movement at a memorial service for five slain Dallas police officers, saying bigotry remains a problem in police departments across the U.S".
Fast forward to today
It wasn't until I moved to Indianapolis years later that I discovered the term, "Redneck" had a negative connotation to certain individuals. Also, I have personally witnessed people in the north make an assumption that certain individuals with deep southern accents aren't "firing on all cylinders" simply because of their thick southern accent. This made me come to the conclusion that there is certainly a culture gap still in this country. I don't believe it's a racial divide. I believe it's a cultural divide.Where do I stand?
To be blunt, I am smack in the middle of this divide. Similar to the 6-foot fence mentioned earlier, I find myself in the middle of a cultural demilitarized zone looking out.I am an individual that spent the first 14 years of his life in the South and then moved to the North. I have a cultural worldview based on my life events of living in two very contrasting worlds. I like many people, have experienced discrimination and racism and my opinions are based on how those shameful events crafted my character. So when I read about the horrible event in Charlottesville, or when I saw the Confederate flag get torn down in South Carolina I have conflicting feelings. Yes, I believe racism is bad, inhuman, anti-Christian and I will no way ever support that type of hate towards another. But I believe racism is bad for everyone. I am looking at you, Black Lives Matter.
Just the angry reaction a liberal will give when I say "ALL lives matter" immediately causes division between me and that other individual. This hypocrisy gives me flashbacks to my day on the basketball court when I was being called a hate word, but I could not say a hate word back to defend myself because the color of my skin was white.
Or when I hear Hillary Clinton call Trump supporters deplorable. Really Hillary? Millions of people that you don't know are simply deplorable because they don't have your worldview? Scanning the Facebook posts of my liberal and conservative oriented friends, they re-iterate the same type of thinking.
Just because I may be Pro-Life doesn't mean that I am not for women's rights. It means that I have a different worldview. Just because I think Black Lives Matter is a racially charged violent group causing damage means that I have a different perspective. I am open to the idea that perhaps there is a level in that group to which I can relate. I have not personally seen that yet, but every individual I meet will get the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.
How do we heal?
Example: Here is a brain tickler, if I never knew about the USA's mistakes in foreign policy, I would think that this country is superior and always makes the right choice militarily. Just in case you didn't click on the link, I didn't know that in the late 1960s the USA invaded and occupied an innocent island in the Caribbean simply because of Communist theories. And I am willing to bet that you either didn't know or simply forgot about that little stain in history. But if you visit or marry a Dominican, they still remember. And many other Latin American civilians remember our blunders in their countries. Not to bash this great nation, I am simply informing you that until I was educated, I figured Latin American's that called us "Imperialists" were just angry communists. And I harbored a secret anger towards them. But some of these people have valid arguments. And we should at least listen to their side of the story from time to time.
- If you experience hate, private conversations work better than email or social media.
- Do not lump everyone in the same group. Example, just because the state of Kentucky voted for Trump don't think that everyone there is hostile to Hillary supporters (I seriously encountered this type of thinking with a very bright individual.)
- There are MILLIONS of white people and we are from hundreds of very different types of white countries. We are not all the same.
- If you have hatred for a particular group of people, reach out to some of the individuals and educate yourself on their side of the story.
- To Steal a quote from the Financial Samurai, "The best way to prove your detractors wrong is to be successful in your craft. The best way to cure your hate towards others is to also become successful in your craft."
My blog is based on Financial Independence and is for everyone. This post is on topic due to the fact that most hate groups, albeit left or right appear to arise from lower income disenfranchised individuals. I want to reach out. I hope that my vantage point added some insight into a larger picture and provided some guidance.
As I have said many times, I believe in what science claims on race. There is only one race, the human race.
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