I come from a long line of dead white people. I am a mixture of Polish, Irish, German, French, British, and Russian or Serbian, or whatever. Pretty much a mongrel. White. Pretty damn white.
I just don't get it.
I don't get Racism. I don't get White Nationalism. I don't think one race is better than another. I don't think America is a fundamentally "white nation." I don't think we should keep people separate from each other.
Do I have any prejudices, any latent racism in me at all? I don't know. I am a human being. Not perfect. If I do have any prejudices, I try to suppress them, bury them, fight against them, because I know prejudice and racism is just ignorance. I am against ignorance!
No superiority.
I subscribe to the Dalai Lama's fundamental idea: "We are all Human Beings first!" All the same. Every one of us on the planet. Race, Nation, Tribe, these things confuse us, fundamentally, they don't really, really matter. We are all Human.
Being human isn't easy. We are easily confused. We are ignorant of our ignorance. So yes, even those people spouting hatred, preaching nationalism & racism, are human beings. I think they are wrong, deluded, filled with ignorance, they have a misguided view of the world and themselves. Maybe they are sick, have "damaged psyches?" Maybe we should think of them as people who need help, who need therapy?
The hope is that people can wake up, and realize what they thought they knew is not what is. We have to hope that people can educate themselves, and learn to be better beings. We are all just "works in progress..."
