One for Common Sense

So it has been a very long time since I felt the need to blog about things but sometimes you just cannot keep it bottled up any longer.  So let me pull out my rant soap-box and start!

There seems to be a huge misrepresentation of what used to be reality with the terms of “Fake News” or as I prefer to refer to it as alternative indoctrination.  Everything we now see, read, hear or find by happenstance now has to be fact-checked, verified and in some cases vilified.  Not to be shy on topic let’s handle something simple like racism.  I say that with a note of sarcasm because many people think this is a very simple matter and that it has no degree of gray, that it is simply (pardon the pun) Black or White.

Nothing could be further from the truth because racism exists in every faction, race, color, gender or fluid identity out there.  I think that on the one hand people should own that at some time, in our own ways, we are all a bit prejudiced to one thing or another.  Racism is or should be about Race.  While Prejudice can be about many things.  Racism shows it’s ugly head in many ways.  Between Racial boundaries of color but also within each color itself.  For example, White Conservative vs White Liberal.  Snowflake vs Libtard, Right vs Left, Alt-Right vs Hippies and many other various name calling childish branding.  Black vs not quite black enough, this was new to me until my African American friend pointed out to me that most black skinned people do not see each other in equal terms.  Just with those examples we know that this is not just race but it is about “Class”.  Educated vs Those without Education.  We are so quick to judge and categorize each other that we barely have time to step back, own up to our intentions and accept that we are all guilty of “Class Bashing”.  

I am not okay...not okay with what happened in Dallas last night as I sat up watching this tragedy unfold. The question on my mind is how, as a society, did we bring ourselves to this place? What is it that we need to change to understand that we means "all"?

I think that it starts with us creating and allowing ourselves to be placed into a box, category or class. Society as it stands now no longer values the life of others. This "all about me" standard has reduced us to many things: power-hungry politicians, power-hungry people in authority, power-driven religious leaders, self-centered concerns, and the lack of the respect of the value of a human life. It does not matter what your color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or financial standing you are. We easily and conveniently create a pretty little box in our mind with each person we meet.  It is comfortable and less threatening when you can think “female” “white” “attractive” “middle-aged” “approachable”, when in fact we know nothing about them at all...we quickly and quietly file it awhile in the deep place where everything and everyone has its proper place and position in our thought process.  Would it then not be the same where we say “male” “black” “large/threatening” “avoid”....so easy to see our own prejudices and precognition when we look objectively at it this way.  When we begin to place and categorize people and accept others placing you in a box we lose site of the fact that we are all human, we all deserve respect, we have to support and love each other. The violence must stop.  One thing is for sure “one bad apple” spoils the WHOLE bunch.  There is a reason why bad apples are not kept with the rest, it taints those around it.  It is why they are culled out....The farmer does not talk to it and say, “no more or now next time”.  He does not defend it or tolerate it, here in lies the problem.  Accountability in the self-centered world is null and void...we no more hold people accountable for their actions than we hold ourselves responsible for labeling and judging everything around us. 

Most Politicians do not look out for the needs of their constituency, Some Pastors and Ministers stand in the pulpit and lift up the Bible for hate, Civic leaders stockpile pitiful bribes for themselves....All while the poor go hungry in the streets, the mentally challenged are not given the attention they deserve and our Nation continues to choose to pull away from Education.  Yes in any of these boxes ONE act of ONE person can seal the deal on making everyone similar to them the same.  The acts of a bad cop reflect on all the rest.  The acts of one Muslim seems to set off a fire that all 1 Billion+ of the rest of them are the same.  One tragedy after another, loss after loss, and like sheep we sit, we think “someone” will do the right thing and deal with it and we deny our own roles in the process of healing and fixing this.  Stop praying for God to deliver us from these things we are the hands of his work.  Get up, demand from those who are leaders and mired in their own self love cesspool to remember what they are there to do.  Serve and Protect and as citizens we are there to respect and give dignity to them as they do their jobs.  NOT while they think of only themselves and forget WHO put them there.  WE did, with elections and with tax dollars.  They are here for us just as we should be there for them.  DO NOT let the actions of one person define the rest of them.  We are terrible and rushing to judgement.  Remember that everyone has a bad day now and again.  We should be there when they needs us, not when it interrupts our “all about me” lifestyles.

So many things make their way past my feed on social media outlets.  I have to say that I do not always give them the proper time and thought that they sometimes deserve.  I also give too much time and energy to many that do not deserve it, but one Post really stopped me in my tracks and had me reflect on history of the struggle for equality in the wake of the Orlando tragedy.

So few of today’s Millennial LGBT youth really know or understand how far we have come, how hard the struggle has been and how far we have to go to find justice.  So I ran across this thread on Twitter, “This Was Never Supposed to Happen To You”.  It is a heart felt and wonderful read that got me to thinking how many people really know that history?

The beginning of the struggle for Equality began before my generation was able to understand what those pioneer’s were striving to achieve.   The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the LGBT Community, against a  Stonewall Inn, located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for Gay rights in the United States.

In every step forward there has been a price to pay in backlash and fear-mongering.  Fear is the beast that feeds the imagination to move to measures of incomprehensible acts.  The arson attack at the upstairs lounge proved that there was a price to pay for activism. The UpStairs Lounge arson attack took place on June 24, 1973, at a gay bar located on the second floor of the three-story building at 141 Chartres Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisana, in the United States. Thirty-two people died as a result of fire or smoke inhalation. The official cause is still listed as "undetermined origin".  The most likely suspect, a gay man who had been thrown out of the bar earlier in the day, was never charged.  Up until the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting it was the deadliest known attack on a gay club in U. S. history.  On Sunday, June 24, 1973, the final day of Pride Weekend,  members of the Metropolitan Community Church, a pro-LGBT Protestant denomination, held services inside the club, located on the second floor of a three-story building at the corner of Chartres and Iberville Streets. The MCC was the United States' first gay church, founded in Los Angeles in 1968.   After the service, the club hosted free beer and dinner for 125 patrons. At the time of the evening fire, some 60 people were listening to pianist David Gary perform and discussing an upcoming MCC fundraiser for the local Crippled Children’s Hospital.  At 7:56 p.m., a buzzer from downstairs sounded, and bartender Buddy Rasmussen, an Air Force veteran, asked Luther Boggs to answer the door, anticipating a taxi cab driver. Boggs opened the door to find the front staircase engulfed in flames, along with the smell of lighter fluid.  Rasmussen immediately led some twenty patrons out of the back exit to the roof, where the group could access a neighboring building's roof and climb down to the ground floor. The others were accidentally locked inside the second-floor club, some attempting to escape by squeezing through barred windows. One man managed to squeeze through the 14-inch gap, only to fall to his death while burning. Reverend Bill Larson of the MCC clung to the bars of one window until he died, and his charred remains were visible to onlookers for hours afterwards. MCC assistant pastor George "Mitch" Mitchell managed to escape, but then returned to attempt to rescue his boyfriend, Louis Broussard. Both died in the fire, their remains showing them clinging to each other.  Firefighters stationed two blocks away found themselves blocked by cars and pedestrian traffic. One fire truck tried to maneuver on the sidewalk but crashed into a taxi. They arrived to find bar patrons struggling against the security bars and quickly brought the fire under control.  Twenty-eight people died at the scene of the sixteen-minute fire, and one died en route to the hospital. Another 18 suffered injuries, of whom three, including Boggs, died.

The next step back came from the epidemic of HIV/AIDS.  The 1980′s saw the community devastated by the unknown killer.  Thousands of people suffered and died. There are numerous references to the history of this available and none of them really show the reality of what it was like to deal with friends dying in your arms, bleeding out in their own beds (if they could even find a bed).  Heart-wrenching is an understatement of what we had to endure as a community when all we had was each other to help us see to it that our friends and extended family did not die alone.  1988, for me was the worst year of my life.  34 memorials, funerals and remembrances held for people I knew.  

The Reagan administration turned a blind eye to this suffering "And The Band Played On”.  (One of the best known works of the history of this part of our struggle).  We suffered in silence and from our pain a new movement took hold.  We were angry, fed up, ready to make things happen.  In New York and Philadelphia a group call ACT UP took to the streets to demand access to needed medications and push for reforms and respect for people suffering with HIV/AIDS.

While on the West Coast, The Names Project was born to never forget those who were lost, those we loved, those we mourned.  I was privileged enough to be at the National Display of The Names Quilt in Washington, D.C.  Both on the Ellipse of the White House and on The National Mall.  

These are just a few of the big moments, but the struggle did not stop, everywhere were instances of abuse and death.  There was always a price to pay for every advance made by the LGBT Community.  

Matthew Shepard  (December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998) was an American student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten, tortured, and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming on the night of October 6, 1998. He died six days later at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Co., on October 12, from severe head injuries.

There are numerous instances you can find on the net about attacks, murders and torture of people in LGBT Community.  I have only listed some of the more notable ones.  

What happened in Orlando in beyond what words can convey.  What we have to remember and never forget that this is now another part of a very vast history of the struggle for equality for the LGBT Community.  In a society where The Bible is used as a weapon of hate and fear, we must remember that we cannot lower our passion to allow ourselves to believe that we are not loved, not wanted and that life does get better.  They are our patriots, our heroes and our flame to carry forward for those who come after us.  Never give in to fear.  Never use those feelings of revenge to overtake you, step back, breathe and go forward with these people and the greater struggle as your motivation.  

We must move to improve and pave the way for the next generation of people so that those sacrifices will not be in vain, but will be forged in our being and in our conscience.  If you are a person of faith, pray to God that he will help the world understand that “Love Thy Neighbor” has no qualifications. For my Atheist and Agnostic friends, I know that you truly understand the moral dilemma we are in as a society.  I appreciate your time and understanding, I have worked through this for a way to mourn and move forward from the Orlando tragedy.