If You Can't Stand the Heat Move to Alaska

I just spent I don't know how long reading quite a few posts that apparently were spawned by an individual who wanted to offer what they believed would be a helpful and safe space for others to reach out. I came into this space with zero expectations, but with the hope that it would be just that...a safe environment. After the diatribe and ranting against someone I feel had the best of intentions, I am now not quite so sure that "safe" would be the word I would use. Firstly we have come to be a country in which people feel that their rights supersede the rights of everyone else and anyone else who disagrees with them, when in fact no one has the right to exercise their own freedoms while trampling on the freedoms of others. Rather than being mature enough to embrace the fact that everyone has opinions, feelings, and experiences which are unique and that those experiences, thoughts, and feelings are valid, we have become a nation of peasants storming the castle as in the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast chanting "we don't like what we don't understand in fact it scares us and this monster is mysterious at least, so lets kill the Beast." It was an all out witch hunt that I read today with justifications ranging from "it's in the site's by laws" to "it's a trigger." Perhaps the real issue is that this is a country that was founded by individuals seeking asylum from persecution of all varieties which has well forgotten its roots. The originator of the post thrust not a thing down anyone's throat and yet immediately was hung on a pike and accused of all manner of things. Why? Fear ...just like the peasants, what we don't like and what we don't understand we must eradicate rather than ask questions. This is precisely how hate germinates and grows momentum. Interestingly in the class I am taking we read bell Hooks. She is a favorite among academics especially feminists, so her writing is used in a great number of classes. The book was All About Love which I have read a number of times for a number of classes. Numerous students commented on how they did not like the fact that Hooks went into a discussion about spirituality and how it helped her overcome trauma. I listened to the criticism for almost an hour, processed why I thought they objected, and then I made this commentary which I am re-iterating here. Hooks is African American. Most of the objections were made by Caucasian students. People of color have historically been mistreated in ways which many are aware and that persecution is both ongoing and equally as traumatizing in 2018 as it was when colonists decided to settle on this soil and destroy the Native culture. In short they live not in a town, or a State, or a country that hates them simply for being alive, but in a WORLD that teaches them that they are not loved on any level. It is for that reason many folks of color raise their children to accept love and healing in the one place where they should be able to find it. Even if it turns out there is no hope that people of color will be accepted anywhere...treated as equals ...at least in giving them faith in a power higher than themselves whatever power that may be...at least hearing that a being created them that will love them unconditionally when human beings can be so obnoxiously hateful and brutally cruel, they have something to hold onto when they are being attacked on every other front. This is not easily understood when analyzed by individuals who come from a privileged race where global love and acceptance is a given. "Keep spirituality to yourself, don't share it, don't spread it," are easy positions to take when you have other resources to deal with your pain and trauma. It would do you good to step back and comprehend that not everyone has that privilege. It is not ok to try to squash someone else's source of hope just because you don't need it, or to tell anyone else that they have less of a right to share what helps them than you have sharing what you utilize as a resource. So when I read someone being attacked for wanting to share their hope with others it made me sad for one thing, but also demonstrated how one person decided that their right to not read about another's choices was supposed to supersede the others right to be heard. I read a lot of things here that I may not agree with but I attempt to see things through someone else's eyes. The definition of empathy is being able to walk in another's shoes. Individuals who try to silence others contribute to the very emotions they come in here to address. I scroll through a lot of "stuff" that I don't find relevant to me or my circumstances the same way I avoid eggplant. If you can't stomach it...don't eat it. Tis' a gift to be simple.