Tampa Town Hall meeting was held yesterday, Thursday, Aug. 6th. My husband and I decided to attend. And although I did not get a chance to get inside the building I decided to write about what I saw and what my feelings were after I absorbed and processed it.
As some of you are aware, I attended the Town Hall Meeting in Tampa, FL yesterday afternoon. It is with a heavy sense of shame that I have to say how disappointed I am with people in general. Now, it comes as no shocker to me that the disagreements would be passionate, but I think when people start shoving, fighting, disrupting and resorting to insults over something that should be discussed with a level head and intelligence, it turns into something entirely different.
I'm all for civil discourse, healthy and intelligent debates. I do believe in fighting for rights...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those things are essential to all of us. Violence should be the very last resort to any situation, unless you’re defending yourself from a physical attack. Granted, we all have the right to display our feelings, whether good or negative on any issue affecting our lives. But what I find disturbing about the crowds in general is that most of them talk about the issues as though they were regurgitating talking points from forwarded emails. People are literally taking in the quotes, paraphrased babble and taking it as fact. Any intelligent person will tell you that when reading quotes you are not getting the entire picture, but merely a cropped section of said picture. If I sent a thousand people a picture of my elbow, could they then say they know what I look like? No, of course not. They would only be able to say one thing...that I'm brown skinned. So, just like I encourage healthy and intelligent debate I strongly endorse the use of facts...not fiction, statements backed up by solid resources and an attempt at being unbiased or open minded at the very least.
Is this too hard for people? No, but unfortunately the politics of special interest groups and the media (particularly from the right) are influencing this uproar. They are cranking out information in such a way that it appears to be factual and therefore low information voters will simply take it at face value and run with it. This is part, if not most, of the reason why you have people that attend these meetings to simply disrupt and cause chaos.
I've been involved with protests in the past, many of which related to political prisoners...police brutality...murder of civilians by the police..Etc. etc. I can go on. Emotions ran high at those events, yet not once did anything turn into a shoving match or resort to any further violence. Granted, not all forms of protest are peaceful. Many of us can name several that have turned out badly due to the extreme passion behind said cause or right being fought for. However the really critical and profoundly disturbing fact remains when it comes to the disruption of informative meetings is that those that are there to stir things up are doing it for one of many reasons. In my opinion those reasons have a lot to do with the following:
- Lack of understanding of the bill being proposed, coupled with the sore loser effect of not having a majority vote in the house or senate for republicans.
- Some, if not most, are just plain racists and will stop at nothing to find a reason to discredit or unseat our current president.
- Pure Capitalist selfishness, where money is far more important than a sense of social responsibility. Whereas they feel that because they've "made it" they should not be taxed more and nor should they help out those that surely could help themselves.
- Party line voters/activists...meaning it doesn't matter what it is or how much common sense is thrown at them, they will always vote along party lines. A bill could be proposed that would make everyone supermodels...if their party doesn't want it.... they don't want it.
How scary is it to you that there are so many people out there with very tiny brains or lack the capacity to really do some independent research for the facts on their own and if they did would not know fact from fiction?
How scare is it to you that I heard a man yesterday insensitively say to a woman with a dying child that (insert country twang) "Well everyone got family members that are dying...doesn't take away from the fact that our deficit and taxes will go sky high."
(Pause for a quick breath and drink some herbal tea)
Okay, yes people...I state the truth when it comes to what I heard first hand. That was real.
So what's next? Should those on the left step up our screaming skills and get just as belligerent as the right? Do we bus ourselves out to their meetings as well? Or play the high road and just let things go as they are...run its course?
As for me, my initial angry gut reaction is to "wild out" and tear up signs and do what they do times ten. However, my secondary reaction is to take the higher road and click "mute" on the "Ignorant People Remote" But alas, my final thought is this...
Would the fire department send one fire fighter to put out the blaze of a house, office building, high-rise? No. Depending on how large the fire is, they would team up and come at the blaze full force but with steady, skilled and common sense determination. Would Black people have attained their civil rights if there were only a handful of people that showed up to peacefully march? Nope, probably not. I am disappointed with my party's ability to show up en mass. I'm even more disappointed with black people who chose to stay away from this event. Showing up to the polls this past election is not the end all for this historic time in our lives. I've realized that now.
So where are my fire fighters?