useless

Our world is diverse. That is an understatement.

Our country combines slivers of our world, infusing richness from cultures, languages and cuisines that is not available in such quantities elsewhere. The "melting pot" phrase is crude, but we, America, meld these differences into our everyday lives, as we should. It is our position to accentuate, celebrate and integrate, teaching our children about our past and lineage while looking forward to a hate-free future. Smoothing the lines between our differences is the easiest way to begin.

I imagine that people who actively discriminate or commit hate crimes see nothing wrong with their position. I imagine they are just acting upon what they have been raised to see, the striking differences in people rather than focusing on the benefits that the blending of cultures provides. I imagine someone explaining to their young child that people with different colored skin are full of poison just as calmly as I explain to mine that the color of one's skin is much like the color of one's car: it's just there to cover and protect the important things on the inside. But who is really carrying the poison? It flows out in smooth insults and in the form of prayers, sullenness, glares, and wide berths as if diversity were contagious.

Differences make life less boring, less predictable, less like lemmings heading over a cliff. Different religious and political beliefs spark raging debates and even wars between countries; but why shouldn't we all be allowed to think? Why is one person supposedly always right and another person supposedly always wrong? Why do people think this way? Your latte is not better than mine; we have differing tastes, so you can have your french vanilla and I will keep my caramel. There's no reason to argue.

I guess it all culminates to this: the poison I have seen in the past few days has always been there, but because I am not looking for it, I just don't notice it. The color of skin, the political view, the religious talismans, I merely see them as part of someone's description, as in the red-haired lady with the star necklace or the dark-skinned dude in the green shirt. I see no other real distinctions. But those filled with hate do. And someone will just as easily tell me to my face that they do not trust me or think that my beliefs are bringing the entire nation to its knees.

I refuse to accept the poison in your veins. You cannot make me hate you. You can stand and pray for me all you want, while insulting my intelligence and my choices. They are my choices and I choose to see you as a sad sack of society, bundled up into your own importance and filled with, not the love you proclaim through your scripture, but pure, driven, venomous hate. What a proud thing to declare of your own beliefs. hate that drips from your sarcastic smile and the way you hold your head, arms folded defiantly across your chest. Hate that is shared by some of the very people you hate, because you both hate each other's skin.

I will not react to your hate, thus rendering you -and your whole sense of being-

USELESS.





dedicated to the high-and-mighty racist woman in the purple shirt, sunday, 7-27-08, at noon at BWI and the UU church gunman in TN the very same day.