By Patricia Morris
This morning, I viewed the hit count on my Website to see how many people had read my blog on the subject. Amazing, how many people came to the site to see my response on the matter. I have always been taught from a child that "Kind words will turn away wrath, and harsh words will cause dissension to happen."
As I wrote what is written in last night's blog, I thought of an interview I saw Comedian Steve Harvey do. In this interview Mr. Harvey shared a story of a conversation he had with a white man on a plane trip from New York to California. Both gentlemen were engaged in a conversation about whether or not Mr. Harvey was going to vote for President Obama because he was a black man. Harvey admitted that he would vote for Obama, because he was a black man. Obviously stunned at Harvey's response to this question, the white man proceeded to make the assumption Harvey would vote for President Obama because he was black, and that it was a racist move. Harvey immediately responded in asking this man if his reason for not voting for President Obama was because he is a black man. In other words, the script was flipped, as young people say, and according to Harvey, this same man refused to have any more conversation about anything with Harvey. Why then, would you ask this white man would abruptly end the conversation. Misconception and sterotypical rhetoric, because we do not understand each other.
As I read the blogs on the Actionnews Website, I must say my comments last night was benigned by choice. Doing so will not be as insightful, had I been extremely harsh. In thinking about the matter, would it change the mindset of many people who yet feel being black is bad, or would it hope to lead to a time when we could all become educated in knowing no two people are alike and our cultures differ?
Stereotypes and misconceptions about all of our cultures has been a problem in the Deep South since the Civil War, and certainly before that time when our own people sold us into slavery from the African Coast. It has taken more than 400 years of being referred to as some of the most deplorable and despicable names that can be imagined to get to the point of being recognized as being a human being. Will it take another 400 years before the respect deserved of any black man/woman be realized in knowing we are all created equal? Men and women, both black and white, paid the ultimate price in this fight to be equal, and the greatest example to all humankind paid the same ultimate price for us - Jesus Christ, and He did so in the most benigned and humbling manner, but He lives today, and because He lives, we can live. It is up to us to make the choice in how we live, and why we do so.
Sometimes the most non-sensical things is the one thing that will help to turn the harshest of matters into something positive.
I, like many others believe good sound leadership and education is paramount in anything, and is the key to turning all of what is happening now into something positive, and do believe it will happen, should we decide to work together and talk to each other as opposed to at each other.
Whatever the McKinney article intended, and why the Daily Star would let it be published in their newspaper may never be known, but I do know this one thing. I can say unequivocally, it does not determine who I am, and is not who black children are. As I traverse across the state and certainly in this parish, this is a message that is beginning to take root in letting black children, and white children know as well - their destiny is theirs, and theirs alone. They decide who they are and who they will be, not because of the color of their skin, but because God gives all that choice.