WHAT IF...?

What if all of the mistakes that we made in our lives could be used to help someone else walk a straighter path if we but shared them? If I poured out my heart to you, shed tears for you, wept with you in order to help you see that you don't need to make the mistakes that I did, would you change your course?

What if all of the men or women that we have met in our lives and shared a piece of ourselves with were able to sit down together and we discussed what went wrong in our relationship, what made you stop loving me, or me stop loving you, or why you never loved me, or me never loving you...could we forgive each other and move on with our lives so that we don't make the same mistakes again with someone else?

What if I could wipe the slate totally clean and start over from this point in my life, what sort of person would I be then? Would I be as sensitive to other's needs as I am now? Would I be able to see the cup as half full instead of half empty? Would I find the joy in a laughing baby, or the sound of a bubbling stream?  Would I understand why some people sit all day long on the side of a river bank and yet only catch one or two fish, when it is not the food they seek, but the solitude?  Would I know the difference between being lonely and being alone, and yes there is a difference...?  

Would I be able to tell the difference between a look of love and one of lust and would I prefer the first look?  Would I know that I am beautiful without someone telling me that I am, and appreciate it more when I speak it myself?  Would I be able to  recognize when a man is being truly honest when he says that he will be there, if I had not known the lies of one that said those same words but never meant them?  Would I love myself as much now after going through my life thus far if I had not been down the paths of mistakes that I have walked blindly down?

I am so glad that He called me and invited me to come to Him. I truly appreciate that God is so forgiving and is able to restore us and cleanse our minds and hearts and make us and mold us, if we but let Him. I am so much better now. I am wiser and stronger and beautiful. Can I assist you, my lost friend, my lost sister, my lost brother? Can I share my past paths with you, so you can be redirected and realigned with God's help? 

What if I could... What if He could? What sort of person are you to be?

RACISM - IT IS A BIG DEAL (Pt. 1)

When I lived in Texas I met an interracial couple who had two small children. The wife was African American and her husband was White. She had been married before and had a child by her first husband who was also African American. Together she and her new husband had a child. He was originally from Minnesota, if I am not mistaken and she was from Texas. She was very aware of racism; however, in his all White town he grew up not knowing any African Americans, never having any contact with us at all. When he joined the Army, of course that changed. She and him worked together closely in their unit and as result they became very close and eventually fell in love. He told me that on their first date, their very first date he was met with racism. He said when they walked into a restaurant together he honestly didn’t notice anyone staring at them. He said when she pointed it out to him he still thought she was being paranoid, because he honestly didn’t think it existed. That all changed the day he was called a Nigger Lover as he played in a park with his wife and children. That was the day he came to understand what his wife had been telling him all along, and that he knew it was a big deal; that she was not being paranoid.

If it were not a big deal, there would never have been a Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth or Margaret Garner. There would not have been an Underground Railroad. There would not have been a Civil Rights Bill. There would not have been a Martin Luther King, Jr. fighting for the rights of my people. No need for the Southern Leadership Conference, no need for Rosa Parks to go to the back of the bus, no need for “Colored” signs. There would be no need for a song to be written called “Strange Fruit” in honor of all of those Black men, women and children that lost their lives as they bodies swung from tree limbs as entertainment for White audiences. There would be no need to abolish slavery, segregation, or apartheid. There would be no jails full with Black and brown people. There would be no Indian reservations. The name Willie Lynch would mean nothing to any of us. The name Nelson Mandela would not be written down in history. If racism were not a big deal there would be no need to expose folks like Don Imus who referred to the Rutgers’s female basketball team as “nappy headed hos”. Or Marge Schott, the owner of the Cincinnati Red’s baseball team who referred to the African American ball players as “million dollar niggers”. Or Paula Deen who referred to the African Americans who worked in her restaurant as “niggers”, but didn’t see anything wrong with that because we called each other the same word and didn’t get offended by it. Or Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder, who was a sports broadcaster on NBC who explained the African American male athlete by saying this nonsense, “The black is a better athlete to begin with because he’s been bred to be that way, because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs and he’s bred to be the better athlete because this goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trade … the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid.” Or Donald Sterling, who can sleep with a Black/Mexican woman, but doesn’t want her to invite her people to his games, or to take pictures with us, post it on the Internet, or act like she likes us. To him all we are is a way to make that dollar. 

If it were not a big deal, these men and women would not have lost the respect of their communities, business partners, or the support of their own peers, and their jobs. Until you walk in our shoes you will never understand the lasting scars, the lasting pain of racism. I have never been whipped with a leather strap until my skin tore, the muscles and bones exposed, flesh hanging from the wound, the muscles quivering, but I know it hurts. That is the sad effects of racism.

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