Friday, July 18, 2008

Poor Use of Words & True Peace

Americans are so loose with words. It's a shame. Of course, all cultures have slang, contractions, shortcuts, etc. that are used in the common speech. But I'm not that old and I'm having a hard time keeping up with all of the lingo that I hear. Most of it is used with the younger crowd. I guess it's cyclical though. The youngin's of today will soon reach this point as well and wonder how they got so old in ten years after high school!

Another poor use of words was displayed as Jesse Jackson was caught saying some very inappropriate things regarding Barack Obama. Let's just all agree that someone in Jesse Jackson's position should never ever assume a microphone is off. I'd hate to be his publicist!

And then we see the drama on The View. I know this might seem to be a simplistic mindset of mine, but I see the divisiveness of race as man-made and fixable. Yes, fixable. God created one race - the human race. And it would be nice if we would teach our children that concept and live within our own existence and not those of our ancestors. Unfortunately, some think that I should never be able to live without the guilt of my ancestors even though I totally agree that anything that belittled another human like slavery is absolutely wrong. I should not be accountable for their misdeeds. Luckily, God can make good come from bad situations and our nation has benefited greatly from our diversification. Just think of what we would be like had our history been different.

And I happened to see a snippet of an interview with Mr. Taye Diggs. Although he is an extremely handsome man who happens to be a very successful thespian, I was greatly disappointed by his words. He spoke as if Elizabeth Hasselback carried part of the responsibility for the creation of "that word" because people with similar skin color were the ones who came up with it. Mr. Diggs, she had nothing to do with that word's origin.


Why can't we move towards a place in the USA where we choose not to be angry about things we can't change? All that energy could be channeled towards a greater good. It begins with dismissing those who are thoughtless and use words to hurt others or stir them to anger, not defending or justifying them based on their ethnic background, political party, economic status, gender, etc. We can all use what influence we have
to reach out and embrace our similarities instead of our differences. Let's get along one with another. That, my friends, is true peace. Do I sound like a public service announcement? Maybe.

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