Daily Archives: January 29, 2015

Racist 2015-24

Posted in Current Events by

Racist    2015-24

The word racist only goes back to about the mid 1930’s, actually, or about 80 years ago. This word was used in regarding the Nazi theories at the time and NOT about other things such as skin color, heritage, culture or what is common today. This term replaced other words such as racialist from around 1917 and way back to 1871 were the racialism word came from then. This is just a little history to mount my discourse on the today word, racist.

Someone who I can still call my friend, named Henry, is an avowed racist and proud of it; I think. Henry does not care if anyone knows this, and I now feel, he will let you know why he thinks this way. I might have known this, or believed it, and did not want to bring it up, but he was saying goodbye to me from a visit after having breakfast and he blurted it out.  I was secretly appalled in hearing this or at least hearing him state the obvious.  Did I know this before – no.  Did I believe it before –yes.  He confirmed it to my face and I think he was waiting for my reaction.  I did not react!

I did not react and I am embarrassed to say so. I could have told Henry, just what I thought and believed and that would have definitely ended a relationship of friendship; I think. He might not have been concerned if that happened, because he also said he is what he is and doesn’t care what others think of how he believes and acts.

OK, that is Henry. I then ask, how many of us have a Henry lurking in the background that we know? Do we accept them as friends, family or acquaintances or do we do something else, like not reacting to them and their beliefs. Or, I ask, how many of us have similar thoughts ourselves, in a way, at times? Or not! It is sometimes easier to put up with than argue with, but is easy the way to not do something?

I feel it is about time that the Henry’s of the world start to fess up and admit they are somewhat slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress and backward in today’s society. Henry would or might say he is living from his life’s experiences. I think that is BS! He might have been exposed to a multitude of people that he thinks, made him racist, but he is ignoring the other balance of society that is also out there, that he doesn’t address.

We as a society are exposed to some people that the media shows as representing the whole of a particular group. The Ferguson, NYC, and Cleveland deaths are examples of both sides of the equation, in recent happenings. I do NOT want to go into these three horrible things, but I do use them to show how we, in today’s society are affected by them. Notice, I did NOT say how I feel about the three recent episodes involving police, just said they were horrible things….  I might expound on them later in a blog, on how I feel overall.

I have written an article about various subjects and am getting ready to throw them out to the world to read and in the reading by others; I will have exposed my inner thoughts about them.  I bet you can hardly wait-ha-ha…..  I have to get the guts to do so, and I am not ready right now…..

I firmly believe there is NO, repeat, NO reason for racism today, or in the past, for that matter. What and why people did in the past does NOT give anyone an excuse for being a racist. Some could use an incident as an excuse for saying they are racist and many do so. Others can use past happenings, such as slavery, as an excuse for being or acting as they do today, but that is not right either. Living in the past with your thoughts about something that you harbor in your mind, is like allowing yourself to be stagnant in life with not much growth. It might be time to drop it and move forward in life. Racism is a cruel way to be shackled in the past without an escape to the future life of enjoyment of others that live around us. What happened in the long (or short) past must NOT be the reason for our thoughts today, simple as that. We CAN learn from the past, but the past is not something to have control on us today.

Peace,

Den Betts

Exclusion 2015-23

Posted in Religious by

Exclusion    2015-23

What the heck is exclusion and how does it pertain to everyday life? Asking Mr. Webster, he said that it is the act of barring, prohibiting, omitting, or rejecting and that sounds like drastic things to do to others. I wrote a post about being judgmental and said I would follow up with this post about exclusion and am therefore doing so now.

I then ask – if anyone has had this happen to them in their life, being excluded? I have, and it is NOT nice to feel that you are being ignored, or worse, in a negative way. In one instance in my life, I was, not made to, but did feel like I was being excluded from a group for reasons that were not fair to me, but that is another subject in the future. Let me say this: It is not right to exclude others and it sure in heck is not right to be excluded by others either!

I was reading a book on spirituality for a book study group, where we went over and somewhat dissected different portions of the book.  In it, a statement was made about exclusion. This was in regard to being excluded by a religious group towards those not in the community of the same faith.

Church groups?

This can be a touchy subject for some, or for certain groups. Do we look at OUR group or community as being the correct one, the better one, the one and only one?  That can happen, and I hope your group does not feel that way or present yourselves as such. How can we have an open door policy and say we welcome ALL if we exclude certain people?

How do you think a church community would welcome these following two types of people? The first type would be three convicted persons where one was a rapist, the other a pedophile, and the other a person convicted of homicide. All three were convicted and served the time that was made by the judge. Now, think of three different people in the same church that have done the same actions, but are unknown to have committed the same acts. Would people of the church exclude any of these?

This is somewhat of a no brainer. If we do not know that the second group committed the acts, how could this fit into the equation?  In the first group we might or may not know of the acts, but let us say we found out, somehow.  Some would have a hard time with the pedophile one, but some would give an honest response to the other two suggesting they did their time and paid back to society for their crimes.

I then ask, would we as a group, really include the three convicted ones into the fold? Some probably would not answer the question, basically, because we do not really know. We know how we feel but might not be able to speak for others in the group. That is an honest answer, I feel.

Those are somewhat more extreme examples, and there are better ones to contemplate that would be more of everyday occurrences.

Someone I know went to a church that was of another faith. It might have been a wedding. Anyhow, he took communion and when he went up to the altar to commune, someone in the back, pointed him out and loudly said, “He is taking communion and is not a ——— (meaning not someone of that faith). He felt embarrassed, because his religion believed that if you can take communion in your own church, you can take it anywhere.  He also felt excluded and ostracized.

I tried to explain that the church rules dictated that he was not allowed to take communion in that church because he was not a member of that faith. He did not understand why not, and it did have a meaningful thoughtfulness to him about that religion then and probably still does. Quoting someone, again, that I respect, “On the other hand, a commitment to rules to the detriment of a person’s relationship with Christ is also not helpful.”

Rules dictate!

We as society members have different ways of believing things and sometimes let the rules dictate just how we react with one another. Maybe, we should change the rules! I look at rules as guidelines that you can follow. I said, “can follow” not MUST follow. My church has statements and messages that give this guidance to those that follow the religion, but they are not classified as rules. A friend of mine told me that our church hierarchy has sort of a “washy- washy” attitude, regarding certain things, in what they put out in those statements, and I feel I agree, somewhat, at times.

The thing is, they (the hierarchy) made a stand but gave leeway to those that read their statements and to either follow or not follow what was written. If you follow them, great and if you do not, so be it. At least you will know what you do is either well thought of or not, by the higher ups. Will you be excluded if you do not follow the guidelines?  I doubt it very much and that is why I like the statements overall. They give us an idea of what the church I follow, believes in, even though the overall practice of following what is written is not a mandatory dictate or rule. I believe that many faiths and holy places of those faiths are not really following the dictates of God, but instead the dictates of human leaders that made the decrees.

Peace,

Den Betts