Strange Times We Live In

These are strange times we are living in. 2020 will definitely be a year to remember…even though we might rather forget.

It started out benign enough…January was well, January. The year continued, and mid-March this thing called Coronavirus appeared, and shut down entire countries, including ours. No school, no eating in restaurants, no bars, many businesses shuttered, some to never reopen.

After a time, people got real tired of being shut-in; the economy was reeling, and let’s face it, we can’t stay shut down until this ugly virus runs its course. So, the governor began allowing businesses to re-open. Now, there is a spike in cases. Imagine.

And, if that’s not enough, we have serious racial unrest in our country. Blacks have been oppressed for a long time in this country, and after the mistreatment of George Floyd, many decided enough was enough.

Now many people have taken to the streets to protest and draw attention to the shortcomings in our laws and our culture. We have had marches here, and they have taken place across the country.

Many white people don’t understand. I know people who say, the blacks have the same opportunities as they have. It’s just not true.

I’ve seen it with education, for sure. Education begets education. My father was college-educated…the first one in his family. Only one of his four daughters managed to finish college, but they all attended for a time. It was expected of us.

Many blacks my age did not have the opportunity to attend college. Yes, I know, there are loans and grants and all kinds of help. It still costs a lot of money, and if the expectation is not there, odds are college is not a priority.

I have a friend who used to teach kindergarten. She said she’s seen great strides in education in the last 25 years…particularly in the education of the parents. Now most parents are literate, something she couldn’t say when she started teaching 25 years ago. She often saw blacks who could not fill out the paperwork for their children. By the time she retired, that was not the case. Woohoo! We’ve made strides.

But, is it enough? Not really. We must always strive to improve, and not rest on our laurels, patting ourselves on the back because things are better now than they were then. Better is good, but it’s not good enough.

I don’t know the solution…and much of the solution will take time. But, we must move forward.

One of the major complaints is law enforcement unequally treating blacks. When this is true, as it sometimes is, it must be stopped. The good cops…and that’s most of them…need to police the bad cops. They need to be gone.

The same with education. Expectations need to be as high for the child—black or white—who comes from an under-educated home life as they are for the white privileged person.

And, each of us needs to get past color. People are people. It’s what’s in a person’s heart that matters. It’s what a person does that matters. No one group needs to be grouped together. Not women, not men. Not blacks, not whites. Not Hispanics, not Italian-Americans, or whoever.

Each person is responsible for his or her own actions, and we should judge based on our interactions with one another…nothing else.