Today I realized that Facebook is a place that sets off my emotions and makes my blood boil! A few months ago my blood pressure rose because of a statement made by a young white man under thirty whose mother married into the family. He referred to Michael Brown as a "thug" and didn't think his insult was racially based.
I, like most Facebook folks, regularly receive "notifications" from people we share our lives with. A few people are ex-students. I have learned to ignore postings from certain individuals. Those postings often are some rant against Barack Obama or the democrats or a host of other stupid stuff that just flows without thought.
I expressly ignore the postings from one of my ex-students. More often than not, the postings from this individual is typified by his love affair with guns, high-powered rifles, body piercing ammunition and fast cars. Today, his brief posting blatantly blames Obama for the riot in Baltimore. The misguided and stupid accusation just struck a very raw nerve.
Brief background below.
This young man is an immigrant from Mainland China. His mother met and married an older American man that I learned to respect for his generosity, his extensive knowledge about the world that we occupy, and his insistence that this young that he adopted, not join the military after high school. He advised my student to study, go to college, find a career and to lead a descent life.
I was this young man's tutor for about two years. He was and is an atypical Chinese student. He hated school and saw no relative value in trying to gain an education.
His step-father and I lectured, yelled, cajoled...well, we did everything in our power to stop, let's call him "Steve", from joining the military. We were unsuccessful. He joined, signed up for five years and was sent to Missouri for basic training. You can only imagine how displaced this young man felt as an ex-Californian, Chinese immigrant being trained to be a modern day warrior, not too far from Dorothy's and Toto's place in Kansas. The Midwest has never been too kind to "the other" and the military just doesn't receive too many Chinese born recruits.
After training, because he dreamed of one day being a policeman, he became an MP (military police) and was initially deployed to the DMZ in South Korea. Life for him became even more like "The Twilight Zone" once he realized he was under fire from his once fellow countrymen.
After a year he returned to Missouri for a few months before being deployed to Afghanistan. Wounded during a mine sweep, the bomb that exploded killed two, US friendly Afghanies. He was returned to the US and received multiple surgeries and rehabilitation in Texas before being released from military service
Needless to say, the young man was bitter after being wounded and disabled. He returned to Southern California and attempted to attend college to become an attorney. His reading comprehension skills are so poor that he is unable to understand what he reads and therefore cannot pass a test. He spends quite a lot of Facebook time denigrating his fellow students, young people that he judges as "stupid" because they have no experience trying to survive and kill in the theater of war. Unfortunately, this young man considers most of the people "back home", and that includes me, stupid.
My husband, a decorated ex-Marine has offered to speak with "Steve." His offer has been declined. You see, in Steve's eyes, a Vietnam era vet is not a credible warrior. For whatever unfathomable reason, most military people, both low and high ranking, are politically conservative and to many, Obama is simply the devil.
"Steve's" statement on Facebook that the riot in Baltimore is Obama's fault just hit a raw nerve with me. The level of misinformation that this returned warrior spews is stunning. To think that many young men and women return from military service, become police officers and then react to our citizens as if they are the enemy? Add to the mix a paucity of education or the decency to "think" about issues, well, as a nation, we have more than reactive, abused and angry young black men on our streets. We have tens of thousand of young, gun owning ex-military people who are trained to kill and are angry at Obama, at progressive liberals, at most anyone without recent military experience.
What we have is the recipe for nationwide riots and not just perpetrated by frustrated young men and women of color. The well paid toxic media mavens.... Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Megan Kelly and those forever 24/7, talking ditto heads from Fox News is going to tip this country into chaos based on intentional misinformation and outright lies!