Rant 1 - People with False Identity Trying to Fix Identity Based Situations

So I have been considering reconciliation. It is a fairly simple concept. One person hurts another. The first gives up their superiority and humbles them self to apologize for the infraction. The second humbles them self to accept the apology and gives up their right to be angry at the other. From that spot they begin to rebuild their relationship. Simple.... but really hard to do. And all reconciliation is the same as this. They are harder because they involve issues that are deep in people identities rather than a slight or mistake. But all reconciliation situations can involve identity issues. It is amazing how easy it is to hurt or damage someone else.

So why am I talking about this. The best way for reconciliation to happen, and I think in the harder cases of racial and gender reconciliation people must have a solid identity to do the work of reconciliation out of. You can not reconcile well unless you reconcile as someone worth reconciling with towards someone worth reconciling with. We must value ourselves and our neighbor as our self. To reconcile we must meet on an equal footing, which means we cannot be putting the other below us, or ourselves below them to do it.

Using the example of racial reconciliation.

The majority must realize that they do have a culture that is worthy of identifying with. That their culture honors God and brings an aspect of who God is to the world that no other group does. They also need to know that their culture has some things to answer for and apologize for. That sin has entered this would through them in a unique way as well.

What annoys me is how often that those in the majority culture (whites in the US) who care about racial reconciliation have this idea that they have only things to make up for. That all they can do is defame themselves until the other groups are placated. That to be white is to be only something that is evil, something to be repented of.

The minority must realize similar things. One that regardless of what the majority has done they have awesome things to bring to this world. Also that they have their own issues to deal with and make up for. That they have to humble themselves as well.

I see, on TV, how many of those that speak out about racial issues on the minority side do it from this point of superiority or entitlement. They speak out for their group and expect the majority to roll over and destroy themselves. Or they blame the majority for all their problems.

I don't want to sound racist or anything. And I am sure there are many out there that fit this, but...

What we really need if we want to see real reconciliation between the races is people that are convinced of their personal worth and the worth of their group. But if they stop there all you have is the KKK and Black Panthers. We need people that take the next step that see the worth of others and other groups as equal to their own. And people that take that outlook to a mindset of serving others over their own best interest.

ONLY then can we truly have reconciliation.

So whites on TV... please value your ethnicity. Please do not bend your identity to other groups and their demands on you. Yes keep working towards the betterment of minorities, but don't minimize your importance to God or their worth to God with how you try to serve. Don't think you can fix it, only God can, just love, respect and partner with others to see how to fight for change.

And to Minorities, please keep showing us where we need to grow. I know the majority has a tendency to miss things, big things. Please do not defame yourself by giving us all the power in your life, to both destroy and rebuild. By giving us the power you keep us in a place we do not belong, a place we should never have taken. Please stand tall in your ethnicity. And help us learn how to interact with you on an equal platform.

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Now I need to say, I am really really just starting in my understanding of racial reconciliation. So please help me grow in this. If I have said something incorrect please give the the benefit of the doubt in my wording, and if it is still wrong please correct me. But I feel that my observations are accurate even with my limited knowledge here. This is a hard area to care and learn about, but it is worth it from what little I have seen so far.

God please help me to see what I have not seen. To see as close to the way you do as I possibly can.

Crappy Day

Did you ever have a day that just sucked. Not for you, like the whole day is bad.

Friday was one such day.

I get into work, and the ambulance is there. Someone crushed his hand a little bit before I got there. Great start to the day.

Earlier that morning the Waste Water Treatment Plant on sight had some issues and my Boss was called at 3 am. Not as big of a deal but both kinda set the tone for the day.

Then I went on duty with the rescue squad as an observer. We picked up a guy who was having chest pain. The paramedic on the crew couldn't see what was wrong, his history fit what we found, but the monitor gave a few flags so we alerted the hospital. We dropped him off and moved on as usual. We picked up someone else later that night and took them to the same hospital. We got back in time to find that they pronounced him. The hospital Docs and machines said nothing was found, but he died.

Usually we don't know what happens, in this case I would almost prefer it. Now I just see him looking up at me helplessly on the ride to the hospital. I felt awkward each time he looked at me like that, I didn't know what to say. Now I wish I had said something, I just don't know what.

And in between the calls one of the girls on the crew slammed her hand in the door and had to get stitches.

What the crap?

Just a bad day.

The Virtues of Self-Hatred

I am a white male, I have a lot to hate myself for. Think about it.

White:
- Superiority Complex
- Destruction of other groups within our ethnicity
- Conquest of other ethnic groups
- Native American near genocide
- Slave Trade (with help from a few other groups)
- Use of Slaves
- Jim Crow Laws
- Holocaust (and hesitation to act against it)
- Economic Rape of Latin America
- Success no matter the cost mindset
- Crusades
- Lynching of African Americans
- KKK
- Setting up the American System that so many hate
- Idea of Color Blindness
- obliviousness

Male:
- Most Crimes
- Most Sexual Assults
- Demeaning Women
- Staying silent when we should act
- Superiority Complex
- Obliviousness
- Gender Blindness
- Ignorance
- Conquering of other groups
- Success no mater the cost mind set

There are more for each group.

Look at that. Several are even repeats so it is even worse. Shouldn't we hate ourselves... everyone else seems to.

And think about it, if we hate ourselves that actually makes life easier. Groups I was born into have screwed the crap out of the world, I am blamed and expected to fix all this crap. It would be so much easier to just agree with the world. If I join them in hating us, hating myself then what they say means nothing.

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"STUPID WHITY YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING, YOU SCREW WITH EVERYTHING!!!"

"Yeah, and not just that but we demean women too. We just suck."

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"Men are just after sex"

"Yeah, pretty much"

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I mean no one can hurt you if your view of yourself is so much lower than theirs is.

You can avoid doing anything about all this too. I mean if you care and think you are actually able to do something about it you have to think and plan and care. If you think you are unfixable you can just enjoy all the escapes we have developed and just not care. That is so much easier.

Self-Hatred opens us as white men up to a world where we can enjoy it. We can enjoy our own company, our pity parties, our movies. We don't have to fix anything or care about the crap in this world, after all every time we try to do something it is just for our benefit anyway, and we can't do anything without screwing up someone elses life, lets just accept it.

And our self respect will be constant, no ones chiding or attacks will ever make us think less of ourselves than we do now. I mean isn't that what everyone wants, us to hate ourselves for enough generations until we have suffered as much as them?

I mean why care? If we try to help people, apologize for the past, spend our time and money to help people excel, we still can't stand tall, cause someone else will attack us for being just like every other white male.

I mean not that our motivation should be respect for helping people, it would come out of obligation for all the crap we have pulled.

I mean who out there is truly calling for equality of the ethnicities? A world where every person can stand tall proud of their ethnicity and gender but with respect and admiration of the others. No one is really proposing that are they? I haven't heard it. The White man is the devil, men are the devil, or adding insult to injury whites fire those right back.

Isn't it just simpler to accept what everyone says and hate yourself so noone elses opinion maters?

What do you care about?

So I have a rant or 2 I want to write about, but I want to set the stage with a few other posts.

How can you tell what people care about?

Time and Money.

If you care about something you will spend your time and money on it. Time is the only recourse we cannot get more of, and we trade time for money.

Look at your budget, where your money goes is one of the best indicators of what you really care about. Where does your time go? That is a great indicator.

I don't wanna hear any of this crap about "I advocate" or "I write blogs that shows I care" or whatever.

If we care about any issue we show it through how we spend our time and money.

That means that I personally have a lot of growing to do, because right now I don't pass that test for caring about the poor or racial reconciliation. But I am growing in those areas.

That is why so often you hear advocates attacked by phrases like "Well if you believe this why aren't you doing X."

If we truly care about something we should be willing to sacrifice for it. I just needed to say that before I discuss my rant soon.