How Dare You Say That Out Loud!!!

 Growing up I do not remember a time where we actually spoke about truly meaningful things. We were, and are, a loud and boisterous bunch. We are talking all the time. And we often talked about some really intelligent things. Our conversations could be dizzying in their breadth and scope

And yet, when I was young and for much of my "adult" life, we did not talk about the truly important things. Those things that were truly important. The things that would tear one up inside.

I remember one time, when I was about six or seven years old, something happened in my house that occurred for me as overwhelming and too much. And I just lost it. Crying and yelling in total frustration. The adults in the house shut me down real quick. I was told that I "had no right to inflict my feelings on others" like that.

Or, How dare you say that out loud.

Isolation and despair became a part of my life. And that, of course, stayed hidden from everyone else. And especially from me. I stuffed everything away in hopes that it would never come back.

It always did and usually at the most inopportune moment. And, most of the time, all over people who did not deserve it and had nothing to do with what was really going on.

As the saying goes, "If you don't heal where you are hurt you will bleed all over people who did not cut you".

Over time I have done a lot of healing work. And I have become much more open to "seeing" the things that I could not bear to look at. I am also much better at identifying and expressing what is going on with me as well. Not perfect. Not even close. Better.

As a friend of mine used to say, "I am better and not yet well". 😂

So I understand it today when I am looking at unhealed people, places, or situations that are bleeding all over those that did not cut them.

And today, that is the United States of America.

We are hurt by our past. The enslavement of Black People through forced immigration and terrorizing, the Genocide of the Native People of this continent, the total unwillingness to address the system that favors White People over others in the Legal and Financial spheres, the continual Subjugation of Woman, the Forcing of Christianity on People who do not want it, the continued Racism against People of Color, the Demonization of Immigrants, the Control of the Levers of Power, including the Governmental, Judicial, and Law Enforcement, solely for the benefit of the Rich and Already Powerful, and more..

All of these things are a part of our past. And, because we, as a nation, refuse to fully face that past, it is also a part of our Present. I tell you that until we really take the really uncomfortable action of Facing all of this, then it will continue far into the future.

And, because of fragile white people still holding 95 percent of the levers of power in this country there is real push back every time that the idea that we tell the truth about our past is raised. They do not want to do it so we do not want to do it.

Here is my proposal. And it will be really unpopular. People in this country who are on the paler side of the color scheme tend to be averse to looking at the reality of this country. It is called, and rightly in my opinion, White Fragility. It should be noted that the most fragile part of the pale spectrum is the White Male.

I propose that we create a Reconciliation Committee. And this committee must be made up of all races, creeds, sexual orientations, from across the political spectrum. It must be open to all to be able to address the grievances of the past and must have the power to compel people to sit in front of it and answer questions.

Very much based of the De-Nazification Commission from Germany after the war.

This is not an original idea. I have no claim to this idea as my own. It has been proposed before by people far more qualified than I to suggest this.

I feel that until we go thru Being Uncomfortable as a Nation and facing all those things that we do not want to, then we are going to continue to be fractured, angry, afraid, and completely unable to live up to the dream that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr so eloquently gave us in the I have a Dream speech in 1963, "I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin (Or sexual orientation, or religion or lack of religion), but by the content of their character".

It is said that those who do not face the past are doomed to repeat it. And we are living in those times. By our absolute refusal to look openly at our past and acknowledge it for what it is then we are locked into this cycle that we cannot get out of.

And we stay Angry and Afraid. Angry at and Afraid of each other.

I am saying it out loud. We are Angry and Afraid. We have gaping wounds in our National Psyche. We continue to Bleed all over those who did NOT Cut Us.

We can be better than this.

We must be better than this.

Or we will not survive as a Representative Democracy and possibly not even as a Nation.

We Must Love Each Other Or Die.

Love. It is the Only Rational Act.