Last night I was bored and surfing the yahoo groups lists of groups
just to see if I could find something interesting. Well, I found
nothing interesting, but it did sit me to thinking. As American's,
everybody wants to be equal and treated equal. As I was searching
through the groups I kept noticing things Like, Gays and lesbians
only, women only, black males only, black women only, well, I think
you get the picture. Then I got to thinking about your larger cities.
First the Chamber of Commerce and then the African American Chamber
and the Hispanic Chamber. If all these groups want to be equal and
treated as such, then why do they keep going off and creating their
own little groups.
After sleeping on this, I came up with a reason. If all these people
who separate themselves off from the rest of the population didn't do
so then what would they have to complain about. America is a melting
pot of all races and nationality's and we should all be getting along.
If we keep separating ourselves into groups and arguing among each
other, how can we be a successful country and a leader?
Yes, I will admit that there still are people in this country who are
races or in some other way discriminate against other people, but the
answer to the problem is not making your own groups and excluding
others because they are different or have different beliefs. How can
we stop the gangs and their violence when we, as a society are
breaking ourselves into groups. How can you expect other country's to
get along when the example we are setting ourselves does not reflect
what we preach.
I have always taught my kids that we as people are all different and
that we don't always have to agree with everybody believes and or
lifestyles, but we do owe it to them to respect others and their
ideas. In doing this, we have had a large melting pot of people
around us, either black, white, brown gay or straight. The deal is
that these Teens have learned to except people for who they are and
love and respect them even though their thoughts and ideas are
different. We have gotten into some interesting conversation with
the kids and their friends over many different things including race,
religion and sexual preferences and guess what, their friends keep
coming back. The deal is that we respect them even though sometimes
we don't agree with their beliefs. In turn, they then respect us for
respecting them and we can all have a good time together.
Let's take for example smoking. It is my right to choose if I wish to
smoke or not, it's nobody else's. If a person chooses to smoke, then
it is their responsibility to make sure that they do not inflict smoke
on others. However, it is also the responsibility of the non smoker
to not make it so that others who enjoy smoking can't. Saying
something like "put that stinky thing out", is not a way of getting
along, but saying something like, "Could you please move so that the
smoke does not affect us" will get you a much better reaction from the
smoker. This is a give and take that used to be part of America but
has vanished. Respect is an important part of getting along with each
other. There are many other examples I could use, but then I'd be on
a bitch session and I don't want to go there.
Leave a message and let me know your thoughts on the subject.
Jimmy.
