White People Can't Hear?
I've previously expressed my own feelings of alienation from "my own kind" or anyway whatever that is based on how I look, my age, my gender, my income bracket, blah, blah, blah and last night only confirmed it. Rather todays reading through of the blogs has confirmed it.
Apparently just about every white blogger in the country only had their white-o-centric ears on when they listened to last nights debate. I had my Latino-mom-ears on and I heard Obama loud and clear and he spoke to me and to my children and to my sisters' children. He offered us all a seat at the table, not tablescraps. No, I am not a Latina, I just borrow the ears sometimes, same as I had my Black-mom-eyes on when I looked at Sen. Obama's little girls on the stage in Iowa surrounded by crowds of cheering white people. Both times I saw and heard the future and it was good.
I don't know how to explain this to you my white brethren and some will never get it and we'll just have to wait on them to die off but for those who would call themselves "progressive" let me explain something to you: there is a world of difference between "sympathy" and "empathy". I've never wasted much time feeling "sorry" for anyone, if you want to even begin to try and understand someone try on their shoes.
5 comments:
Right on!
Mama, I think organizing and demonstrating throughout north and south for civil rights in the 1960s, confronting dogs, clubs, and fire hoses side-by-side qualifies me to claim some empathy, as I do know the difference. I watched the same debate, and I I saw his offer of a seat at the table to be a rehash of an oft used political line, no different from the seat he is offering those of us without health care. I like his policies on immigration, but he needs to flesh them out with substance.
Everything is an old line though, because politics is an old game. We just have to decide which ones be believe.
We just have to decide which ones be believe
Exactly. That's what it came down to for me and in the end was weighted somewhat heavier than needing to agree on every single detail of every single issue.
I mean really, how often do ANY two people agree 100% on everything? Trust is at least as important as absolute agreement.
The tie breaking question was: which candidate do I trust to always make every effort to "do the right thing". Obama won hands down.
As I have said (many times) before, it all comes down to who do I want to hear and see on my nightly news for the next four years. It ain't gonna be either Bush III or Clinton III.
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