With all of the national, racially hateful actions taking place around the US, for me, it has been a little weird.
As an older African American, since the election, I have had white Americans over the age of 60 approached me to voice their opinions of shock with the outcome of President-election.
The look on their faces is somewhat amusing, as I listen to them complain about how a man like Donald Trump could be elected.
I nodded my head and shrugged my shoulders staring at them wondering if ever in their lifetime did they ever consider how the Indigenous people felt when the could not vote after they were forced to live on lands designated by the US Government. Only to see every agreement broken.
Where was the shock when African Americans lived through many elections during the Jim Crow laws of the south, or how Japanese Americans citizens felt during WW-2 when they were forced to live in concentration camps in the Midwest. What is cruel and shocking is being released from an internment camp after the war and trying to find a place to vote.
These confessions of shock and disbelief all culminated this past Sunday when 60-year-old plus lady, in a wheelchair, approached me telling me she is a devout Christian.
She wanted to take my photo to post on her Facebook site to show she was not a racist. She admitted she has a black son-in-law and a Muslim neighbor. But the way people are protesting and responding to the election has her feeling like a racist for voting for Donald Trump.
Of course, I refused the to take the photo to ease her feelings of being a racist. I did take the opportunity to educate her and later her husband with some insight into why there is a race issue in America.
The example I used was the Panera Bread Store where we were seated. I asked if she saw a person using racist comments towards another in this store what would she do? She had no answer.
I impressed upon her that if she did not speak out against a racist in the Panera Bread store. You are complicit not only as a human being but as an American citizen. She had no answer.
I asked if she ever viewed the ABC television show "What would you do." She said she never saw the show.
So, I asked if she was a Christain, she promptly said yes. So ask yourself "What would Jesus do?" Yet, again no answer.
Most white American's are ignorant to any issues of race because it does not affect them directly.
Most have never read, or considered any history of minorities living in the melting pot called America.
They have never read the US Constitution, Preamble, The Bill of Rights or the Amendments. She is like most Americans who never knew anything more about the history of Ameican after they left elementary school.
I believe her historical knowledge is based on John Wayne movies, FOX News, and Facebook.
So, since she interrupted me while I was writing my novel, I took the next two hours to educate her about the indigenous people of this continent, with a little sprinkle of African American History and a dash of Japanese American history.
I explain how every American treaty written and signed to ensure a better life for the Indigenous people have been broken. They seem stunned.
When I told them of the Lynchings of African Americans that took place before, during and after the Civil War. They were equally shocked.
When I explained the plight of the Japanese American families, who were held in Incarceration Camps in the Midwest during World War Two. They did not want to believe what I was saying.
They have no idea why it is important to maintain high standards in local, state and federal government and who they vote for. They will never understand or comprehend the racial, bigotry, sexist horrors American's have endured for centuries.
They will never find the desire to understand, sympathize or show deep compassion for the horrors they refuse to believe.
But, they will tolerate and live with the belief they are complicit racist.