Perspective, Privilege, & Racism

My sonshine works for one of the oldest financial services providers in the United States.  I’m not going to name names because that part doesn’t matter.  Not really.

Today they began their staff meeting with 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence.  He said at first the group thought being quiet be easy but as second by silent second passed, the truth of what really happened to George Floyd became painfully evident.  Murder, on live stream.

My mind still cannot fathom how we got here.  A pandemic world on fire.  Or rather how we are STILL here?  With everything we have in our oh so modern world, we are woefully inadequate in this respect.  We should be better by now.

Continuing on with the lesson, next the team conducted a quick study.  Everyone started by holding up both hands.  The rules were to put a finger down for each yes answer to a series of questions …

• Have you ever been the only person of your race/gender/socio-economic status/ sexual orientation in a classroom or workplace setting?
• Have you ever been bullied or made fun of based on something that you can’t change?
• Have you ever tried to change your speech or mannerisms to gain credibility?

As the questions continued, some among the group closed both hands after the first 10 questions.  My Pony Boy ended after going through all 35 with eight fingers still in the air.  He softly laughed with tears in his eyes, “yeah there were a couple of economic questions in there which is why I put two fingers down but man mom, my eyes are open even more”

We Understand That We Will Never Understand, However, We Stand

We know that with this privilege comes great responsibility. It’s a privilege we were gifted for no other reason than one day being born. Silence is no longer an option. Silence = acceptance.

And before the hate mongers ask me how could I … please know one can be outraged by the murder of George Floyd while continuing to support law enforcement. The two are not mutually exclusive. But I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that racism is alive and well in our country. And in your heart of hearts I think you know that too. I’m speaking out now because the first step to solving a problem is admitting we have one.

As always, more to come.

 

Sprucing Up The Place

Every post is becoming easier with this new editor. I’m afraid to try and update my theme because I might lose stuff. Instead I stumble along.

One way I can spruce up the place is by reviewing, revising, and/or deleting my drafts. I had 21!!! Here goes nothing!!!

After the first few, I began to realize that sometimes when I need to release the hounds, my thoughts are too vitriol for prime time. I write the venom out and save as draft. I call this the Gary rule.

Why? Because Gary was a manager we had back on the day. He gave us the idea when responding to an upsetting work email, that we should first do so without thought just spewing. He suggested leaving the To: and Cc: fields blank so as not to inadvertently send. Then we’d save until the next day.

When the sun rose again, we’d open the email with fresh eyes. There were two options: Revise taking out anything unprofessional to send or dumping in the proverbial file 13. More often than not, the next day we’d feel better. Few if any of those nasty-grams were actually sent.

Leading me up to today and a status on my housekeeping. I wrote a post on August 13, 2017 that was about one of the most upsetting events in our life. As I re-read, I realized uh ya, not even close to being bad. The topic that had me spinning was minuscule by today’s standards. Into the trash, without a look back. Buh-bye. Don’t let the door hit ya on the way out.

I’m grateful that I held on to my pain not publishing that post.

I am writing this in advance of it’s publication while the world is burning. Scary times. Rightful peaceful protests sprouting up from 400 years of oppression. Then I hear stories that my mind cannot truly comprehend. Paid protestors. A distraction for their own nefarious purposes. I’m researching, trying to stay educated. I’m just not sure what I can and cannot believe.

For now I will end with what I know to be true. We are either racist or we are actively anti-racist. I choose to be the latter.

As always, more to come.