"Love and concern for all are not things some of us are born with and others are not. Rather, they are results of what we do with our minds: We can choose to transform our minds so that they embody love, or we can allow them to develop habits and false concepts of separation." -- Sharon Salzberg
The quotation was sent to me by a very good friend, one of the people I count myself as lucky to have met here on AOL (shout out to PeAnNo2na!). It was timely, because I'm still reading Race, and my father and I have been discussing race. I learned from my dad a long time ago that race is a socioeconomic social construct, nothing more. People TRY to make more of it than it is, but they can't change the facts.
I have often said that love and happiness are desires that span human beings, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sexual orientation and gender. Why human beings don't get that is beyond me - it ain't rocket science! Still, we feel the need to segregate, SELF-segregate, and judge based on a FALSE SOCIAL CONCEPT.
I want this journal/blog to stir it up, as Bob Marley would say. I know that I'm "preaching to the choir" for many of the folks that read this, BUT, we need to talk about it, and often. This country has a lot of work to do. As long as we deny our heritage and history, i.e. slavery, and the damage it's done to our national psyche, well, we'll not continue to progress, and we'll soon find that we're no longer the greatest nation on the planet.
So, yak, yak, yak it up, my friends. Next subject: white privilege, white male privilege. What is it? Does it really exist? Wow - tough subject! Think about it for a while, and then let's talk!
Kate, the teacher
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