Thursday Thoughts ~ ALL LIVES MATTER

After a small break from being here posting and tweeting and making blog posts, well it is hard to stay quiet any longer.
What issues are irking me right now?I wanted to ask you for a little thought on this the 1st Thursday in June.

Do you know, are you aware or have you ever really considered how Black Lives Matter just as much as All Lives Matter?The scenes of recent days, this past week have been atrocious to say the least. There is a great understanding and a clear view of why such riots and protests have been taking place. George Floyd did not have to die in the way in which he actually did.

 

The issue of racism is a difficult topic for many to discuss. Some will claim not to be racist and then make a racial slur of one kind or another and then be accused of being racist. The topic is actually that sensitive.
Another will play on the subject and use the racism card when appropriate.
These couple of characteristics of the topic bring an more heightened sensitivity to the subject of racism.

Pause for racism for a moment…

I do see skin tones and am not colour blind. I see that many races of people exist in the entire world. I can recognise that there are many differences between myself and others based upon the colour of our skin. Sometimes I can see different genetic traits based upon the race of one kind or another.
I can also see that there exists differences between people based upon their cultural background.

What I cannot see is why any one race of people on our planet must be singled out.
What I cannot see is why one race of people on our planet are superior or on the other hand inferior to another.
What I cannot see is a need to bring about a divide among people based upon race.
What I cannot see is why an entire nation and a very large powerful nation at that, I cannot see why it must take millions of people to march in protest to make demands of their representatives to bring about a much needed change.
Change in policies, laws, legislation and the list keeps going.

 

The thought I present to you today is this:

Do you know that All Lives Matter?

Do you know that every human in the world has the basic needs and rights as humans?

Do you know that by not being considerate of others in the way in which we treat each other is an atrocity?

 

 

To clarify, I am a person who is identified as a white person. Perhaps being an Irish person makes me not a supreme white person like those who have descended more so from the British empire. They have long time been our deep rooted enemy. We Irish were the slaves to the Kings of England and their respective “cronies” for a long time in history.
Perhaps being an Irish person has kept me cocooned in a very white society for my entire upbringing. Perhaps even that we have been a suppressed nation or race of people for a very long time with an added dose of control by influence and instruction from a religion of the Catholic Church, perhaps for these reasons I found it strange not to understand what it is that is racism. I did not see the tone or colour of someone’s skin as means to identify anything different about the person.
In my ignorance of not first hand ever knowing what it was like to grow up with barriers in front of me that I did not ever understand racism and what it all meant.

 

What I can say and I offer as a thought to ponder today.
I do understand now, because I am older now or because I lived a portion of my life in the United States or perhaps because I understand who I am today. I understand that all humans deserve equal.
An equality that affords each person the rights to be who they are.
I have sat and broke bread, befriended and shared many laughs (good belly chuckling laughs) with many different races of people.
I have been welcomed to sit and eat food with many different races of people.
I never felt any different nor did I ever consider race at the times of doing so. My own naivety or just a simple colour blindness that I possess due to who I am. Regardless the point and thought is this.
Skin tone nor cultural back ground are cause for judgment.

 

 

As a man, a “white” man. I stand with all who protest the recent weeks tragedy. I was glad to read that all 4 officers are now being charged in the George Floyd case.

We know nothing of another human being and how they have been treated their entire life.
We know nothing of how another person feels.
Repeat.
We know nothing of how another person feels.
We know nothing of how the tone of someone’s skin has shaped their life.

 

What we do know is that we do not like to be consider inferior. We do know that we do not like when we are classed less than any other human. What we do know is that we are not superior in any way shape or form because of our skin tone.
Some people may be smarter, more clever. Faster or better at stuff, more skilled. We can be categorized for these things and there is nothing wrong with this type of categorization.

SKIN TONE
Has nothing to do with helping and living with our fellow humans.

 

 

I hope you can spare a thought for a few moments that Black Lives Matter and so does yours.

ALL LIVES MATTER.

 

 

To finish, I saw a tweet yesterday that read,

“a nation that waited months to deal with a pandemic waited only minutes to deploy forces against its own people”

This my friend’s is a sad reality. A very Sad state of affairs.
If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.

 

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