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You
got caught there
By J.
Damany Daniel
You got caught there, didn't you? No, it's all right, no need to apologize.
Everyone does it at least once. At some point in our lives we see
someone standing on the corner and without a second thought, we peg
them -- compartmentalizing them, like so many others, into easily
accessible, bite-sized pieces for our minds to mull over and digest.
It's no one's fault though, is it? It's no one's fault that the presuppositions
about his hair, her race, her home, his ______, never go unchallenged
and therefore proliferate from generation to generation. I mean, it's
not my responsibility; I'm only a…a what? What am I? So many things
to live up or down to. So which one am I? Where exactly does the real
me fit in? Between the _____ and the _____ lies me -- the truth. But
where in there do I fit? How much of what you think about me is right?
I used to know, right? I mean, I had to…or else…who am I? Which part
of your sum total equals me? Who do you say that I am?
In a society that prides itself on its acceptance of all things different,
shouldn't we at least be able to see past minor differences and petty
squabbles? Hazy generalizations and half formed opinions? What is
the basis of our hatred, the prepubescent larvae from which our animosity
arises? What spawns our contempt and why? You're different so I avoid.
You've changed, so I push away. Is that what we fought for? Did Birmingham
end just so the doors that once read "whites only" could now be replaced
by wings that are "blacks only"? Look around you, who do you see?
Why have we yet again allowed ourselves to be divided by…what? Differences
that extend only as far as the eye. Why do we never see past to the
similarities that extend to the soul?
But I suppose it's ok. We're comfortable, right? Why rock the boat?
Because as long as crosses still burn with fires as hot as the hatred
of the ignorant, and as long as our eyes are blinded by the hoods
of our "beliefs," things will never change. And then the dream, His
dream, will die.
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