I took a break from adding to my Corona Diaries series for obvious reasons. I don’t feel like I can properly put my feelings into words about what is happening in the world. I don’t have the desire to virtue signal. I think there is a lot going on far beneath the surface that we aren’t “allowed” to see….but I digress.
I have raised my children to be colorblind and so they are. I grew up in a very ethnically diverse city and school system. One of the main reasons I left Portland when my kids were young aside from the intuition that I needed to live closer to my dad (who passed away 3 years after I came back to Los Angeles) was that I wanted my kids to live in a much more multicultural city. My kids went to schools and formed bonds with friends from the most beautiful rainbow of races, cultures and religions. I am not worried about their ability to love unlimitedly.
So…I will go back to posting a few more times about what initially shut us down as a world and country. I posted this on my Facebook page a month ago, and feel it deserves a space on here as well….for today, this is my post.
I know we have all but had Covid erased from our minds for the time being…but as I see that we are stepping into a summer camp-less summer here in LA and my kids have been isolated from their peers since March 14th (not by choice…but I can’t make decisions for other people’s kids) with no real concrete knowledge that they will return to campus in the fall….I feel the need to remember the other beast we are grappling with…which somehow can translate into so many other issues we are facing.
This blog was never meant to touch on politics and past this point, I’d like to keep it that way. However, since I do write mainly about parenting, and healthy living….and mental health plays a MASSIVE role in both and is being affected on a grand scale by what is going on…I felt the need to break my own code of conduct just this once.
Tolerance comes without condition. If you think yourself a tolerant person (i.e. non-prejudiced against religions, race, sexual orientation, gender equality, etc.) then you must also be tolerant of those whose perspectives do not fit your narrative. My father did not escape the oppression of his country so that his daughter and grandchildren could live in a country full of so much judgement, hate, and vitriol. This pandemic should have brought us all together….not divided us further. Everyone needs to wake up and realize that this intolerance and division we are displaying is exactly what “the powers-that-be” want from us. I don’t care if you wear a MAGA hat, a tin foil hat, or an Antifa shirt….we are ALL suffering from what is going on….and those “leaders” we are supposed to genuflect to ultimately DO NOT CARE. Doesn’t matter what side of the coin they are on….they all go home to their ivory towers after throwing each other their gubernatiorial gang signs and sleep soundly while we suffer from depression, anxiety, and a genuine worry about what on earth is actually going on. At some point we need to get out of this “groupthink” and really try to help each other out. Dogma of any kind is an opiate. Yes. I just said that.
Sorry, not sorry.
“We the people” are who count….we can make the changes we want and need…but in order to do so we need to see beyond what the puppet masters want us to see and not be afraid to do so. Act on that.
header photo by Lisa Fotios @pexels
