View Story | 24 comments
Comments: Expand Shrink Hide (Always) | Indented Flat (Always)
...if it really bothers me, I ask them not to send them.
Otherwise, I shake my head, delete the message and continue to wish the best for them.
One of the people involved is a Korean and Vietnam veteran that has been instrumental in providing tremendous personal support to me. I will not write him off because he has some views with which I find no sympathy. He has many, many qualities beyond these.
Here's a story:
I knew a woman. A single mother, living on the dole, and cleaning houses to make ends meet. In the floor below her, lived an old Armenian couple. He was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, so he was darn old. They were also dirt poor. At one time, he had been a scientist, but they had been driven from Lebanon, and now had nothing.
They were involved with the local Salvation Army (or "Sally," as we call it). You could find them at Xmas time in the mall, ringing bells.
Every Sunday, they would go to the Sally, and return with day-old bagels. They would hang a bag of the best ones for my friend and her kid.
These are the best people, right?
They were also outspoken bigots. They didn't like black people, and would say the most outrageous stuff.
Nevertheless, my life is richer for having known them.
by Heronymous Cowherd on Thu Jul 27, 2006 at 06:58:51 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
presumptuous. By way of apology, here's a transporting text from the sixth century Persian philosopher and mystic of Islam, Rumi. It might make a good e mail in cases like this:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense. * Rumi, c. 529
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense.
* Rumi, c. 529
"You can't be neutral on a moving train." - Howard Zinn
by bigchin on Thu Jul 27, 2006 at 07:09:27 PM PDT
We tend towards black and white, "binary" worldviews. It is hard work to keep a truly open mind. In my case, just when I think I've got the darn thing open, I find something else that shows me I still need work.
These friends of mine certainly don't have open minds, so the first rule is that we can only expect things from ourselves. With others, we can only accept.
I was always a fan of Nasrudin, myself. ;-)
by Heronymous Cowherd on Thu Jul 27, 2006 at 07:18:17 PM PDT
That's what's going on here.
Racism is nothing more or less than "my tribe good, their tribe bad." No doubt plenty of rabid racists are also very nice to the people around them, because the people around them are "their tribe." That however does not make the racism any less evil, nor the tribalism any more viable as an excuse or rationalization.
What's needed, as the antidote to this, is:
a) On the secular & civic level, reinforcement of the point that we are all humans first, and in America we are all Americans, and if we are Americans then part of our creed is that opening line in the Declaration of Independence that says ALL are created equal.
b) On the spiritual and religious side, each of the world's religions' core beliefs include the value of respecting others, practicing love and compassion, and so on. Each (or most anyway) also has various beliefs, seldom at their core, about tribal loyalties and hatreds. The key here is to keep the focus on love and compassion, which drive out fear, and in doing so, drive out hate.
by G2geek on Thu Jul 27, 2006 at 07:37:32 PM PDT
http://www.wfdd.org.uk/
by Heronymous Cowherd on Thu Jul 27, 2006 at 07:48:45 PM PDT
wide narrow
View Story | 24 comments