Exploring my limits and discovering new things is what's fun for me. Recently, I've been testing the limits of my own imagination, wondering what it might be like to have lived a different life or been dealt a different starting hand by fate.
It is perhaps close to impossible to get outside of our skin and sex. Listening and perhaps empathizing is all we can do. I worked for ten years in the US black inner-city and never felt I knew what life was really like for my friends there. But for some reason I did think that maybe I was an exception to their experience of whites!
When ML King was killed, we had riots in the inner city in Wilmington, Delaware (basically a Southern town). My church was down there and I drove down (for some dumb reason) thinking maybe I could help my friends. I got within half of the block where molotov cocktails and bricks were being thrown at cars with white people driving through the area. A guy I knew well saw me and came over to me in my stopped car and said, "Ron, turn your car around and get your white ass out of here!!!" He was so much more clearer than me about our differences. We could talk weeks later (while the National Guard was still standing on the streets with loaded rifles) and all I could think, "I really do not live in their world."
When we moved to Vancouver, Canada in 1977, the Canadian population was just under 30 million. Yesterday we reached 40 million. Almost all of the new 10 million citizens were not the white European people who had originally settled in Canada - apart from the then almost invisible indigenous people.. In the community I live in, which happens to be one of the wealthiest in Canada, we white European type people are now only 45% of the population. There are store signs in my neighbourhood that I do not understand. So "we" are quickly becoming a minority but, as yet, I don't think of myself as being discriminated against. That could come someday. I am sure the talk is there behind our backs.
In our multicultural, multiracial condo, our next door neighbour is an Iranian who was able to get out before there were restrictions on taking your money with you. She wonders, "Why aren't you Westerners not doing more about our situation in Iran?"
I am convinced that much of the right wing rebellion in North America and Europe is about the awareness of these populations people that they are losing their culture and racial status and faith dominance. It is happening here in Canada too but not yet so much anxiety as South of us. My only reactive reaction is that I don't want Shariah law to come here with those particular Muslims. So far, efforts in that direction have been rebuffed politically and legally; but for how long? Our Iranian friend is an atheist and hates that religious approach as much as I do.
Thank you Rick for this beautiful reflection. You have explored in a deeper way the very thoughts I too have entertained. You are a torch light for me into my own self. I wish you a restful and renewing summer. I look forward to reading you again in the the Fall. Birthdays and Father’s Day regards......Gordy
How thought-provoking .. Have a restful summer and cannot wait for the next series .. Happy Father’s Day
Thanks for this Rick.
It is perhaps close to impossible to get outside of our skin and sex. Listening and perhaps empathizing is all we can do. I worked for ten years in the US black inner-city and never felt I knew what life was really like for my friends there. But for some reason I did think that maybe I was an exception to their experience of whites!
When ML King was killed, we had riots in the inner city in Wilmington, Delaware (basically a Southern town). My church was down there and I drove down (for some dumb reason) thinking maybe I could help my friends. I got within half of the block where molotov cocktails and bricks were being thrown at cars with white people driving through the area. A guy I knew well saw me and came over to me in my stopped car and said, "Ron, turn your car around and get your white ass out of here!!!" He was so much more clearer than me about our differences. We could talk weeks later (while the National Guard was still standing on the streets with loaded rifles) and all I could think, "I really do not live in their world."
When we moved to Vancouver, Canada in 1977, the Canadian population was just under 30 million. Yesterday we reached 40 million. Almost all of the new 10 million citizens were not the white European people who had originally settled in Canada - apart from the then almost invisible indigenous people.. In the community I live in, which happens to be one of the wealthiest in Canada, we white European type people are now only 45% of the population. There are store signs in my neighbourhood that I do not understand. So "we" are quickly becoming a minority but, as yet, I don't think of myself as being discriminated against. That could come someday. I am sure the talk is there behind our backs.
In our multicultural, multiracial condo, our next door neighbour is an Iranian who was able to get out before there were restrictions on taking your money with you. She wonders, "Why aren't you Westerners not doing more about our situation in Iran?"
I am convinced that much of the right wing rebellion in North America and Europe is about the awareness of these populations people that they are losing their culture and racial status and faith dominance. It is happening here in Canada too but not yet so much anxiety as South of us. My only reactive reaction is that I don't want Shariah law to come here with those particular Muslims. So far, efforts in that direction have been rebuffed politically and legally; but for how long? Our Iranian friend is an atheist and hates that religious approach as much as I do.
Thank you Rick for this beautiful reflection. You have explored in a deeper way the very thoughts I too have entertained. You are a torch light for me into my own self. I wish you a restful and renewing summer. I look forward to reading you again in the the Fall. Birthdays and Father’s Day regards......Gordy