December 20, 2013
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
How many times have we heard those of power and privilege tell the people they’re walking all over to stop complaining because they don’t like hearing such hostility? It’s like whites in the 1960s reading about the latest race riot in the newspaper, sighing, and asking their black maid, “Why we can’t just all get along?” When the maid tries to calmly explain a few points that the protesters are making, then the whites make her and her comrades out to be rabble-rousers who can’t just be happy living in peace with their neighbors. Then the whites reply with something like, “Why can’t you just go back to being like you were 20 years ago in the 1940s when I was a kid? Growing up I never heard blacks complaining all the time like this. Why are you suddenly trying to make things so difficult for everyone?”