Tags
Charlottesville/Virginia, Displaced peoples, Divisiveness in America, Fear and hate in America, Honduran migrants, Make America Great Again, Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting, We reap what we sow, White nationalists
White NATIONALISTS in Charlottesville – Virginia – August 2017
Photo Credit: Vox (Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency)
We want our country back
rile white nationalists
goose-stepping through the streets
of Americaville
waving tiki torches
emboldened and blinded
by their chosen fuhrer
ruling in the White House.
Homo sapiens. Wise man. Where is the wisdom, our superior intelligence, when we know not that we know not? How soon we forget that we live on the ancestral lands of conquered Native Americans: over 500 tribes occupying these lands for more than 15,000 years. How soon we forget that the good life we have enjoyed for generations has come with the sacrifice of non-white bodies to the gods of greed, plunder, and dispossession.
We-humans, in all our wisdom, forget the laws of Mother Nature. When we plant grapefruit trees, we cannot expect to harvest Gala apples. When we sow fear and hate, we cannot expect to make America great again.
Victims of Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting – October 27, 2018
Photo Credit: Jewish Telegraphic Agency
The seeds of fear and hate
produce stunted gnarled trees
with fine brittle branches
bearing fruits of despair
where nestlings find no place
of repose or safety
& raging stormy winds
rip their roots from the earth.
We continue to reap the bitter fruits sown under European conquest, colonialism, slavery, and Jim Crow laws. We are reaping the thorny cacti of our endless wars in the Middle East. We are reaping the stubble from supporting dictatorships across Central America and beyond. We are reaping the fury of fierce storms and wildfires, the harshness of drought, and suffocating floods, after decades of dumping our waste into the atmosphere, oceans, rivers, and lakes.
We want our country back.
It’s the cry of all displaced peoples across our planet.
Honduran migrants cross GUATEMALA border on march to USA border – October 15, 2018
Photo Credit: NBC News (John Moore/Getty Images)
We are displaced peoples
orphans of Mother Earth
fleeing the tyranny
and greed of just a few
in search of freedom from
violence & hunger
freedom to sing and dance
under the Sun & stars.
Three Worlds One Vision 
Amen to that, Rosaliene.
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Thanks for dropping by 🙂
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I remember many years ago being with an Australian who was complaining about immigrants and there not being enough work for people who were born in Australia and I replied that I imagine most Aborigines feel the same way. It didn’t go down very well, of course, but I just hope that person remembers the conversation too and that it might have given them something to think about. I doubt it but I live in hope. 🙂
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Perhaps, we focus too much on what immigrants will take from us and very little on what they would bring to our communities.
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Yes, in Belfast, a city which had little diversity beyond the two ethnic groups that were slugging it out from 1968 until the nineties, there are now loads of Polish and Lithuanian shops and supermarkets, two Chinese supermarkets and a Turkish/Kurdish store. I use all of them. Sometimes I don’t really know what I’m buying but it’s great. I just don’t understand the mentality of people who won’t try anything new or who resent the fact that there are lots of people here now who aren’t British or Irish. After all, the Irish have been poor, starving immigrants in dozens of countries around the world. Of all people, we should understand what it feels like and be welcoming and supportive.
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So true, your final comment, John.
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Thanks for sharing… 🙂
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” Jimi Hendrix
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Words of wisdom from Jimi Hendrix, Dutch.
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Those white supremacists who “want their country back” better be careful because they might just find themselves back in prison. #Charlottesville
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Robert, I pray that these times of growing divisiveness will end before we lose the tenuous threads that unite us.
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may these wise words
help give all a place
to feel safe & connected, Rosaliene 🙂
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Amen to that, David 🙂
Stay safe from the toxic air pollution from the Paradise wildfires. Here, in Los Angeles County, we’re battling a wildfire in the Thousand Oaks-Calabasas-Malibu area. On Friday, my son, who works at an electronic games company in Calabasas, had to work from home. Then, yesterday (Saturday), the smoke enveloped our neighborhood in West Los Angeles.
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😦
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When this sociopathic president makes the statement that he may hold back emergency funding to California because it doesn’t know how to manage its forests (forests in Malibu?), it’s truly time to march on Washington. This administrations acts and statements are historically fascist and everyone should be extremely aware of its potential. Just for the record: Rev. Dr. Michael Campbell
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Thanks for sharing, Mike. We are, indeed, wading in dangerous waters.
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Rosaliene,
How sad, and sadder that I feel so helpless, as probably so many others do. I’ll wish for some healing rain for California. Also, I hope the wind changes and blows the smoke out to the ocean.
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Thanks, Katharine. The effects of climate change are truly upon us.
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Mostly, people love home. Extraordinary circumstances compel refugees to leave home. Imperialism is an ugly truth we don’t like to think about.
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Imperialism is an ugly truth. But if we lack the courage to address it, the empire will splinter. Just ask the British.
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… and the wealthy get wealthier while the poor get used…
Let’s hope more people wake from the dream of obsession over possessions and we all learn to appreciate the important things in life.
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Shift, I believe that the shifting winds of time, already in motion, will force us to realign our priorities.
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I hope.
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Great post, Rosaliene. Thanks for sharing.
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I appreciate that, Dr. Bramhall.
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The next question is how to get there, to the better world. And what “there” would look like, given the differences among us even within our tribes, the environmental and economic challenges, and the fear of change in a world changing too fast for many of us. I have only questions, no certainties regarding the path.
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Neither do I, Dr. Stein. I know only that we-humans have to come together, if we are to save ourselves. I know, too, that change must begin with me, with you, with each one of us.
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Reblogged this on Guyanese Online.
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Thanks for the reblog, Cyril. Glad to hear that you are safe and well after your close call during an in-flight disaster.
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Pingback: We want our country back
Thanks for sharing, GuyFrog 🙂
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We only have to look at history, to know what will happen eventually, every great Empire met its end, people from all over, ended somewhere else, and with time become assimilated to the local people, until history knocked at the door once more, it seems we will be condemned to repeat history, until perpetual, and real EDUCATION, not biased, with patriotism, and agendas. We need a better education to be the norm in schools, hopefully now with Global communication, we may achieve, a true understanding, that all Nations, are made out of people, not different, in essence, just with a different History, but with the same rights to be citizens of the World, and not the other, the alien who may bring all the imaginary evils who are not in them, but in our own fears, and is a reflection of our culture of racism, hate, bigotry, and greed, ready to pounce on the weak and destroy them in order to appease our fears, and our sanctimonious prejudices
First we need to be at peace with ourselves.
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Thanks for dropping by and sharing your thoughts. I agree that we need “a better education to be the norm in schools.” Sadly, some schools here in the US are re-writing history to suit their own narrative.
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Thank you for helping us look at these hard truths, very well written. Peace within ourselves sometimes comes easy, sometimes, not. But it is within our control and a place to begin.
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Thanks, JoAnna. Sometimes, too, we need to take back control of our lives from those who wish to divide us.
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True.
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Pingback: We want our country back – By Rosaliene Bacchus
It makes me sad that people do not realize that we all could very well be refugees one day. Most people these days are a few pay cheques from losing their home. I used to believe that most people believed that people should be treated as they would like to be. These days I do not feel so certain. All I feel I can do is to treat all I meet with love and kindness.
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I share your sentiments. Here in the USA, thousands of Americans are already losing their homes to super-storms and wildfires.
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In research and on applications, it still irks me to see the color “White” as a race, whereas all other nationalities are now labeled according to their country or ethnicity of origin: “African American” replaced “Black,” and the rest have never been addressed as a “color”: Asian, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, “other,” “multiracial,” “multiethnic,” etc. Only recently have researchers (but not others) been using “European American,” to level and equalize, and to do away with color representations of race and ethnic identity. Other forms of ethnic identity for European Americans include “Caucasian,” but some have taken offense to that term. In my opinion, the color representation should be eliminated, so as to reveal the true nature of our socially constructed categorizations – which might piss off White supremacists, but they can choose the “Other” category like everyone else who isn’t pleased with the term used to represent their group. The more we realize that people’s origins are not and should not be based on a so-called skin color, the more we realize that people are humans whose national origins and genes (for lack of a more appropriate scientific term that I am not yet aware of) better categorize them in this Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. Binary categorizations (white and Black labels) often skew the data in research, which leaves out important confounds related to mixed ethnicity, mixed races, and those who do not fall within Black or White categorizations. Even our research and polices are skewed by these biases, so it comes as no surprise, then, that we are socialized to adhere to the majority rule, as opposed to universal truths about humanity. It’s sad what this world is coming to.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this issue.
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Sorry I had missed this post. Well-said Rosaliene!
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Thanks, Henry 🙂
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Do you think this is a race issue or a human flaw issue?
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Good question, Lander. I would say that the race issue IS a human flaw.
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Good reply
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I’ve done a little study to determine if prejudice is real. This is what I posted, you may find it interesting.
https://realitydecoded.blog/2018/01/20/is-prejudice-real/
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That’s a great blog post. Now following… (Oh, no! he says, not her!)
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I actually enjoyed our last conversation. I like to be challenged.
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Lander, those who experience racial prejudice in their daily lives don’t need a study to determine its reality. In moving to the USA, I’ve come to observe first-hand that white people – those who are not self-declared white supremacists – are unaware of their racial bias and white privilege. It’s built into the system and perpetuated throughout each successive generation.
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[…] those who experience racial prejudice in their daily lives don’t need a study to determine its reality. […] white people – those who are not self-declared white supremacists – are unaware of their racial bias and white privilege. It’s built into the system and perpetuated throughout each successive generation.
Those words should be posted in foot-high red letters on the white house lawn!
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You stated — “Lander, those who experience racial prejudice in their daily lives don’t need a study to determine its reality. ”
My response — That may be true but those who do not believe it to be real, do need it.
Not every message is for every reader.
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