Replacements

Racism is alive and well in America. Truth be told, it always has been. Ever since people landed on these shores and decided to 'other' the natives, it has been. Manifest Destiny was the justification. God wanted us to have GOD'S COUNTRY. It is the same justification people always use when they plan to slaughter those who live in a place and they want that place for their own. The Jews did this when they took land from people after their exile from Egypt. God's word or not, there is no way to pretty that up. They killed people so they could have land.

I'm not anti-Semitic for pointing that out. If you choose to believe the Old Testament, it's just a fact of what is written. And see the thing is, people were so accepting of conquest, of colonization, of tribalism, that for centuries, very few people have ever really commented on how horrible that was. Enslaving the Jews was horrible. The Jews using violence to take land from other people was also horrible.  The thing is, no one examined how horrible all this was because, at the time, it was just common.

It's still common. We use different names for our slavery, but we still do it. People still take lands and homes via conquest. In other countries, we decry this because it's still violent. In our country, we use money and the legal system to gentrify people out of their homes. We keep the native population on reservations and mock the ones who find ways to actually take care of themselves. We complain about how the black people have never 'made anything' of themselves but then get angry when some of them do. We ignore the facts like the destruction of Seneca Village in Manhatten and the Little Rock race riots.

These are facts. I'm not being anti-white here. I am white. Or at least, I'm white as white is currently defined. I'm mostly Irish and Italian and there were points in history where both of those would not have been considered 'white.' In fact, if all the other people that the current Alt Right hates were to magically disappear tomorrow, it wouldn't alter anything. They would just select out groups of their own to make the new 'bad people.'

Yesterday in Virginia, the Alt Right and their assorted friends marched to protest what they see as a great injustice. This great injustice was not sparked because laws were being passed to not let them marry as they choose or worship as they choose or control their own bodies or be paid well. They weren't being murdered in the streets or driven from their homes. No, this great injustice was that a statue of a dude who betrayed America and lost a war was being taken down. Three people are now dead over a statue.

The protesters are chanting "We will not be replaced." Okay. Look, admittedly things have changed. You can't just step on the necks of other people to get where you want to be. You have to work harder, as hard as anyone else. If you don't want to be replaced, stop thinking of yourself FIRST as 'white straight man' and start thinking of yourself in terms of things you can alter and control. Artist. Farmer. Student. Doctor. You can improve on these. You can learn more and do more. And if you don't as quickly or as well as you feel you should, perhaps examine your own sense of expectations instead of blaming other people.

The fact is, life can just suck sometimes. It's like when I got cancer. Cancer is terrifying. It's seriously the most terrifying thing I've gone through as an adult. I started to feel sorry for myself and wonder 'why me?' but then it occurred to me, 'why would it NOT be me?' There are things you can do to prevent cancer, but it's really just a toss of the dice. I was just as likely as anyone else.

So go home. Being an angry villager with a torch isn't a good look.