These are some very troubling times here in the United States. The events of this past weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia have shaken my belief in a world that could move past tribalism and hatred and whatever fuels grown men to ram cars into crowds of people. How are we still at the point that we deny the humanness of every person on this planet? How are we still at the point that we would gladly stand up in front of an entire nation and say that someone is less than just because of the melanin levels in their skin, or the religion (or lack thereof) that they choose to follow or some other arbitrary measure? How are we still at the point that these types of behaviors and thoughts aren’t so repugnant that the mere thought of lending your voice to this doesn’t make you sick to your stomach? How are we at the point that we’ve lost sight of the fact that the ideals of peace, liberty, and pursuit of happiness apply to everyone, not just some pre-ordained select group?
I’m still coming to grips that this is still happening in this world. I’m trying to find the right words and I just keep going back to that horrible sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’m revolted by these types of people. I’m sickened that someone thinks it’s ok to grab a tiki torch from Wal-Mart and protest that their ability to be racist, sexist, and whatever else moral failing they possess isn’t condoned simply due to the accident of their birth to the right color parents. That it’s ok to plow a car through a crowd as long as they don’t believe the same hate you spew? (And don’t get me started on why that driver wasn’t immediately condoned as a domestic terrorist by the people who would have screamed that if the driver was brown…) So many other people have been far more eloquent than I can be right now trying to explain their revulsion.
But I can’t be quiet now. My conscious, my moral compass, whatever you want to call it is screaming that we cannot possibly be backsliding like this.
I’m a science nerd… There is only one race of people. We are all the same race. We are all homo sapiens. There are no other races than the one we all belong to. We are facing so many threats to our species longevity – climate change, nuclear proliferation, overpopulation, environmental degradation, clean water shortages, and the list goes on and on. How is it that so many people can’t look across the divide and think to themselves – we are all on this tiny life raft together in a vast, incomprehensible universe and wouldn’t the journey be so much better if we could find a way to peacefully co-exist?