Tag Archives: prejudice

Apartheid

dictionary with letter A

Apartheid: (n) in South Africa, a policy and system of segregation or discrimination based on the grounds of race.

If you’re an American citizen, you had little to no chance of having an understanding of Apartheid unless you allowed yourself the blessing of reading up on it and discovering all the subtleties.

In the 1980’s, when the issue was inflamed with turmoil, the communique in our country was to stay out of it or to side with the South African government by offering some sort of lame excuse for the existence of such prejudice.

Matter of fact, there were religious leaders in this country who insisted that Apartheid was necessary because without it, the natives (who just happened to be black) would tear one another apart because of their tribal conflicts. There were actually people who accepted this reasoning as being reasonable.

It is similar to those in the North and South during the Civil War, who feared that freeing the slaves would unleash an unholy terror of massacre and mayhem on the white population.

Matter of fact, throughout history we have decided to keep a bad system in place rather than risk bettering it. Of course, every time we’ve done this, the proponents of such foolishness have ended up looking like idiots–as those religious leaders of the 1980’s do today with regard to Apartheid.

I do not really care what tenets of philosophy and religion you adhere to, as long as you will agree with me that even though progress often takes time, the energy of the universe is always moving towards freedom.

There are countries in the world today which subjugate their population and terrorize their brothers and sisters with all sorts of rules and regulations, which will soon be as extinct as the dinosaurs and viewed by history as oppressive lunacy.

You can’t take freedom away from people without being viewed a tyrant.

So when I heard about Apartheid in the 1980’s and listened to both sides of the issue, I realized that it is a God-given right (of course, by God) for people to be as foolish or intelligent as they want to be, as long as they are free to do so.

We cannot control the actions of human beings. What we can do is provide the liberty, without question, for them to play out their philosophy quickly.

Anything written on paper that proclaims a truth will surely need to be amended … by the spirit of liberty.

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Apart

dictionary with letter A

Apart: (adv) two or more people or things separated by a specified distance from each other in time or space (e.g.: his parents are living apart)

  • What separates us defeats us.
  • What we consider unique is really arrogance.
  • Birds of a feather don’t always flock together.
  • Culture is often just a cult of superiority.
  • Fear of each other is instilled and never natural.
  • Yearning to be left alone opens the door to sadness instead of awareness.

All of these statements come from my heart. Yet the entirety of the passage would be questioned by most people in our generation

Why? Because in our cowardice to discover one another, we choose to scatter into our corners.

Is this a problem? Is there a danger in remaining apart?

If each one of us was marooned on a desert island without supplies, with people from all walks of life, the necessity for communication would be required for survival. Yet for some reason, we feel we can stay apart in our world and still survive the prejudice.

This is what I know: Earth was here long before I arrived. Even though my brattiness would like to believe it will stop when I die, it won’t.

So since I’m passing through, I have three choices:

  1. I can fix something that’s broken.
  2. I can break something that’s fixed.
  3. Or I can notice what’s broken and help someone who can fix it.

To achieve all of this, I must interact with my brothers and sisters.

To embrace solution … I will need all of them.

 

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Anti-type

dictionary with letter A

Anti-type: (n) a person or thing which represents the opposite of someone or something else.

  • Everybody has sex, but not everybody’s allowed to be considered sexy.
  • Everybody should learn the politics of our generation, but not everybody is comfortable being political.
  • Everybody’s a human being, but not everybody is treated as human.

Everybody is loved by God, but not everybody is ushered into the ranks of the religious.

Perhaps the most unseemly part of our human race is our penchant for wanting to “box things up” and label them, only to end up stacking them on the shelves for storage.

So whenever I hear the words “can’t,” “shouldn’t” or even “won’t,” I have the tendency to want to challenge them. I am fearful of leaving my brothers or sisters out simply because they don’t fall within the boundaries of the prototype.

Yes, they are anti-type.

For instance, I am a big, fat guy who is bald and aging, who happens to like to sing. When I do this vocalizing, I am always astounded that it often takes me much longer to get an audience’s attention simply because I don’t fulfill the stereotype of the typical crooner.

It sucks. But that fact that it sucks does very little to stop the insanity of the prejudice. So I sing without permission, becoming the anti-type of the pop world.

For I’m not so sure that without anti-types we will be able to progress the Adam’s big family much further.

  • We need people with enough confidence to know they are sexy but who are not runway models or six-pack studs.
  • We need politicians who escape the garble of glib and instead, simply impart their message with a bit of candor.
  • And we are certainly desperately in need of people who love one another and God without ever sniffing of religion.

It takes courage.

It also takes a sense of humor.

And I do believe … it will take time. 

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Annihilate

dictionary with letter A

Annihilate: (v) to destroy utterly; obliterate.

Universally, historically, chemically, spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally and internationally, “destroy” is one of those words that is part of the three heads of evil.

Linking with “kill” and “steal,” it forms the only empire of darkness of which I am aware.

And even though we like to focus on extreme examples of destroying by citing genocide or even ecological malfeasance, we do better if we embrace the danger of sinister activity in our own breast instead of attributing it to villains.

What am I doing to annihilate anything in my life? What am I destroying which, if I would cease to do so, would enhance my possibilities and the people around me?

It’s a powerful thought.

The first thing I have to overcome is my defensiveness and fear of being exposed as a destroyer.

The second goal would be to accept the fact that even a little destruction is annihilating something of importance.

So I will busy myself today with a bit of analyzing on this issue.

  • Of course, we are all in danger of annihilating ourselves through bad habits.
  • Some form of annihilation is inevitable when we maintain prejudice, which lends itself to bigotry.
  • And even the acceptable position of being opinionated tends to annihilate fresh ideas from peppering our minds.

We must be willing to forgive ourselves.

After all, we sat in Sunday School as children hearing stories of the Children of Israel annihilating whole tribes in order to gain the Promised Land.

We read about the thousands of casualties during the Civil War, fought in our homeland, never considering the individual soldier.

And of course, none of us were present for the terror of the first two atomic bombs, which annihilated a pair of cities and hundreds of thousands of people.

To annihilate is the killing edge of not giving a damn.

To avoid it, I must be willing to consider where calloused reasoning has made me susceptible to such treachery.

 

 

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Anesthesia

dictionary with letter A

Anesthesia: (n.) drugs or gases designed to create insensitivity to pain prior to surgical procedure.

It occurred to me while standing in the breakfast aisle at the local supermarket.

In previous years, I complained about going shopping and having rude little children point, giggle and laugh at me simply because I was a fat man.

On this day, what crossed my mind, standing next to the Honey Nut Cheerios, was that I couldn’t remember the last time that I had such a confrontation with a little one in the marketplace. I wondered if it was because our children had gained a new sensitivity and had ceased to mock unusual people.

Without being too cynical, I seriously doubt that. There is certainly as much prejudice around today as in any other time.

So it baffled me a little bit.

But then I realized–the secret to this absence of ridicule did not lie in the children, but rather in me.

  • I had stopped looking for the pain.
  • I had ceased to probe the room for disapproval or listen for the slightest chuckle.
  • I had learned to go about my business.
  • I had accepted the great anesthesia of confidence and peace of mind, to free me from the need to be pricked and probed until I screamed out in displeasure.

Maybe the kids are still laughing. But I am dull to their critique.

Maybe when I come zooming by, they poke each other, point and giggle at me. But I am already gone.

The glory of anesthesia is that necessary surgery can be done to our bodies without us fighting the treatment.

May God give me the anesthesia of soul satisfaction so the surgery that He needs to continue to do to my heart … will be painless and profitable.

 

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Alleviate

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alleviate: (v) to make suffering, deficiency or a problem less severe: e.g. he took measures to alleviate unemployment

You usually can tap a tear or draw a cheer by speaking against the evils of pain, poverty and suffering. And certainly, these nasty villains have crushing results on the weakest members of our society.

But I think you are often trying to treat the rash on your skin caused by the tumor in your heart. What we need to alleviate in order to improve the status and quality of life are:

  • Piety
  • Politics
  • Prejudice

They are the spawners of all pond scum, and therefore should be attacked for their vicious planning of the destruction of mankind.

In one stroke, piety makes us feel better than others and worse than God. It leaves us uncertain of our value, falling into a pit of pomposity to try to prove our worthiness for salvation.

Politics is the band-aid for the gaping wound which pretends to repair the breach, only to welcome deeper and deeper levels of infection.

And of course, prejudice targets an enemy who has done nothing to us other than being different, so that we might promote our own singularity as superior. It is the nastiest form of insecurity available in the arsenal of human weaponry.

Would we have war without politics, religion and prejudice?

Would there be hungry people if politicians, religionists and bigots weren’t restricting the flow of charity?

Would there be suffering if politicians were actually addressing the needs of society, churches were spreading the blanket of Jesus’ love to “the least of these,” and prejudice was dissolved and a liquidity of acceptance was poured forth?

Alleviate. Yes, I believe my job as a human being in the twenty-first century is to lessen the effect of piety, politics and prejudice, on the mind and heart of the common man.

In so doing, I will find that less pain, poverty and suffering will afflict the strangers–now acquaintances–around me.

 

Ale

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Ale: (n) a type of beer with a bitter flavor and higher alcoholic content

There are three important words that must be understood, otherwise each one of us teeters on the verge of falling over the cliff into the great abyss of obnoxious.

If you don’t know the difference among these words, you will start using them interchangeably, which renders you ineffective and nearly inert.

  • Prejudice
  • Opinion
  • Insight

When I looked at today’s word from the dictionary, I realized that nearly everything I would write on this subject was not only irrelevant, but certainly should be cast into the great vat of useless.

I don’t drink beer. So since ale is stronger, it hasn’t passed my lips. Therefore, for me to pontificate on this subject would not only be ridiculous, but harmful to the general good of those ale-drinkers  who are much wiser in their tastes than me, and who would be willing to offer insight instead of producing opinion and prejudice.

I have often told people that my one and only experience with beer led me to believe that it tasted like what I thought fly spray would be like if I was stupid enough to ingest it.

I am weird. I don’t like to put things in my mouth that don’t taste good–which normally, to me, is sweet or salty–just to prove that I have the kind of buds located in my tongue that are versatile and universal.

Mine is not a moral objection; mine has no social implication. Beer and ale just taste like beer and ale to me, which honestly, leaves me ailing.

So please forgive my lack of contribution to this topic. What I tried to do was avoid opinion and prejudice as much as possible, while admitting my lack of insight.

Now if we could just get people in academia, pulpit and government to do the same, we might arrive at our ignorance much more quickly … and alleviate it through education and experience. 

Alabama

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alabama: (n) a state in the southeastern U.S. on the Gulf of Mexico, capital Montgomery, statehood, Dec. 14, 1819.

A state of mind.

Even though I must tell you, having traveled all over this country, that there are nests of belief, custom, culture and theology that persist or flourish in their particular homeland, the hatchet job that has been done to our fifty states to promote causes, newspaper articles and political agendas is abominable.

Nowhere is this more evident to me than in the perception of Alabama.

I would be amiss if I merely portrayed the “sweet home” aspects of this particular state. Like every other principality which has ever existed on earth, it is riddled with mishaps, bad judgments and incoherent ideas being fostered as “normal.”

But to personify Alabama–or any part of the south–as the hotbed for bigotry, ignorance and inequality is not only short-sighted, but comes from a place of arrogance and a desire to limit the qualities that these dear folks can offer to our country in faith and hospitality.

Some of the worst memories I have of my journeys have been in the south–especially Alabama–and also some of the golden treasures of people and discovery have also been found within its borders.

Here’s the truth: people live where they were hatched, take the best parts of their surroundings and mingle them with tolerance and love to form a workable way of being. No matter where they abide, if they accept the portions of their culture which alienate them from the rest of the world, they have gone down a foolish path. But if they set aside childishness, they gain eternal perspective.

Prejudice was not born in the south. Long before slaves were brought to this country, there were slaves in Rome, Greece, Egypt, China and every corner of our globe. Those who were intelligent, historical and also spiritual learn to recognize the limitations of their upbringing in deference to the mercy that the God of our creation requires of His children.

I love Alabama. I love Massachusetts. I love California–not because of the history book or the spouting of their individual Chambers of Commerce. No, it’s because I have met people in each of these locations–and many others–who have overcome their ancestors to be born again … to newness of life.

 

Aground

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAground: (adj & adv) in reference to a ship running on or onto the bottom in shallow water.

Shallow.

There you go. Thus the problem.

We used to believe that “still waters run deep,” until we realized that the adage doesn’t apply to a generation of people who refuse to speak because of the vacuous nature of their thoughts.

I am not cynical of our time or particularly gloomy about our future. Yet I do not think it is the job of people who write articles or who are creatively bent toward sharing wisdom to always kiss the rear end of the person in front of them.

We just need to realize that we have created so much shallowness that we have run aground–and as you well know, when a boat runs aground, it can neither float nor can it sail from its perch.

So where have we run aground?

  1. By telling everybody they’re great, we’ve eliminated the word “great.”
  2. By electronically connecting ourselves to the world, we have emotionally disconnected ourselves from one another.
  3. We have replaced actions with speeches, thinking that merely stating our intentions is sufficient to prove our willingness.
  4. We foster the present bigotry as intelligent study, even though historically, every rejected piece of prejudice took a similar profile.
  5. We promote a war between men and women while simultaneously using sex to sell everything.
  6. We foolishly think there is a permanent solution to problems rather than a gradual revelation in our everyday reality.
  7. We value critique–one of the more useless human endeavors.
  8. We accept mediocrity, hoping that others will accept our rendition.
  9. We want to believe we are exceptional, even though every nationality that has pursued that particular philosophy has ended up being declared tyrants.
  10.  We think that problems can be solved corporately, when nothing ever happens in the human family without individuals repenting.

It’s really quite simple. When you take away personal responsibility, the need for humility and you add in the arrogance of uniqueness, you get people who have a common spiel–which they use to promote a nasty disdain.

Here’s the good news: for each one of these ten that we address and change, we can double our potential.

God is good because He doesn’t demand much change from human beings … for mountains to move.

Aghast

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAghast: (adj.) filled with horror or shock: e.g. when the news came out they were aghast

I was trying to figure out what horrifies me.

Like most human beings, I think I’m horrified by violence, destruction, death and mayhem. That’s good. (I mean, it’s bad. But it’s good that I think it’s bad.)

But there are other things that horrify me. I’m talking about that shock that startles your heart and makes your bowels tingle.

  • As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become horrified by the notion of performing activities I am not presently suited for in any way, shape or form.
  • I’m a little bit horrified when I watch television and realize that we have sunk to an era of fantasy, presumption, silliness and self-involvement.
  • I’m horrified by killing. I think I already said that.
  • I’m horrified by pornography. I think what horrifies me about that subject is the notion that women, who consist of half of the population on the planet, can so easily be trivialized and brutalized through a medium which is gaining more acceptance every day.
  • I’m aghast at prejudice–so much so that I’m willing to root it out in myself.
  • I’m aghast when I get around people who are overly confident in their abilities because it shows that improvement is so far from their minds.
  • I don’t think I’ve ever been horrified by a horror movie. That’s rather bizarre.
  • Yet I am truly horrified by death–my own in particular. I know as a person of faith, I should welcome the experience, or at least not be terrified of the journey, but that isn’t really my sensation. I enjoy life and I’m just not relishing the idea of seeing it end, especially since I am fully cognizant that things will be able to continue without me.

I guess what leaves me aghast is the notion of how easy it would be for us to be kinder to one another, yet we make the more difficult choice to conjure evil.

The thing I know above all else is that human beings don’t need any help from the dark regions of hell in order to come up with a way to destroy one another. Yes, I guess that makes me aghast.

For the truly horrifying part of life is realizing how easy it would be to create peace … as we blithely purchase more weapons for war.