Learning is interesting to me. I’ve been going outside my normal box of
education. And by that I mean what my
friends post on FB. That’s sad my friends. I didn’t watch the news because,
well, it’s horrible and sad and disgusting and the news sources swing data anyway
they want to. So I stopped watching.
Lately though, I’ve been trying to expand my horizons. I’ve been listening to NPR and it’s funny
because someone literally called me a “Flaming Liberal” (my response was “no, I
just like people”) and I’ve gotten a few odd looks when I tell people. But I’ve
learned about a lot of cool organizations and what is going on in the world to
fight social injustice.
Listen, I really don’t understand what it’s like to be
discriminated against because of the color of my skin unless you count that one
time I went to a church in Detroit and I was the only white person for 4 weeks
and no one would talk to me (and I tried really hard because I loved the praise
and worship and the message). And that really doesn't count. As far as being a woman and discriminated
against, maybe, but soon after people meet me, they meet my big personality and
know they better not screw with me too much or they are going to get the raw
end of the deal. It’s true. We all know it. (but I will also love people
in any way I can – you gotta take the good with the bad I guess)
I have started serving at my church in youth ministry and we
have a lot of kids from the neighborhood that come and we have lots of kids
that aren’t from those neighborhoods too.
I used to say “kids are kids” and you love them no matter what. And that’s kind of true. Well, the “love them no matter what part is”. The truth is I don’t care what color their
skin is or where they are from but I do believe that in order to love them the
best way possible I need to understand or at least educate myself on what it
must be like to grow up where/how they do and the challenges they face.
So I listen to podcasts and I have people I can ask
questions that I trust and know my heart.
I started reading books (well listening to them) to learn more. It’s opened my eyes to a lot of things. I’ve literally said to myself “wow, never
thought about it that way” and a lot of times I’m like “ARE YOU F’ING KIDDING
ME?”
I don’t know friends, it’s hard. It’s all hard, in some ways I think we’ve come
a long way (we elected an African American President) and in some ways we’ve
fallen so far back I can’t believe it. I
think we’ve come a long way but as my sweet well educated daughter said this morning “I don’t
think we’ve come as far as we think we have”.
I’m sure I will be writing more about this. I’m sure there will be plenty of people who
disagree with me (you can get your own blog), I would like to say this, I am
open to talking about the things I learn but I am not willing to argue about
it. My only objective is to learn more
so I can love more.
The current books I’m listening to: https://smile.amazon.com/No-Justice-Police-Officer-Family/dp/1478976659/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515677024&sr=8-1&keywords=no+justice+robbie+tolan
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