Lives Matter

So much on the news lately seems to revolve around how a certain ethnicity or race matters and trying to pit the views of the viewers in that what they are trying to get across matters to their race, culture and/or ethnicity stating that either white lives matter, black lives matter or brown lives matter and to me this just doesn't add up or as my father would say, "Just doesn't cut the muster in what truly matters.". Why would one race matter over the other by touting how much their lives matter over that of anyone else's lives? 

What is it that truly matters? I would think it would be overcoming our prejudices that would be a good start in understanding what truly matters, not their race, culture or ethnicity as being what they feel matters. Should we believe that it is those things that separate and defines us, that all that matters is agreeing with their idioms and jumping on board? No. Then that would redefine that individual and change more than just their beliefs. 

I was raised in a very devout and hard-line Southern Baptist family where my father was a minister of the faith, but in all my talks with him he never used his faith in a prejudicial  manner or to solidify his prejudices except against hate, bigotry or moral cleansing. He used his faith to educate and overcome those ignorance's we seem to harbor and hold to and in some cases to nurture until it consumes our beliefs so much that the chance of seeing something in a new or different perspective is shunned because we feel it is a personal attack against us and due to our own ignorance we feel there is no other way, but our way.

By the mere statement that a specific race, culture, ethnicity is what matters is already painted by a prejudiced state of mind. I'm reminded of President Abraham Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg, VA. and the opening  line of his address to the people of this young country, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." It doesn't mention any specific race, but rather he uses the word "all" to see us as one people, not one race, culture or ethnicity. Until we understand what really matters there will be very little or no change and we will keep struggling against and battling those things we cannot accept in order to plant seeds in those ignorant to the truth.

I am not saying we should not be prejudice, we should be very prejudice. If we weren't Adolf Hitler's idea of a so called "master race" would not have been protested against and he would have gone unchallenged, then an entire race, culture and ethnicity would have been wiped off the face of the earth. I encourage people to be prejudiced, prejudiced against ignorance, hate, immoral beliefs, ethnic cleansing and the list grows daily. And it is that list we need to shorten and remove those things in our lives that pits one against another due to race, culture and ethnicity.  

It doesn't take a racial, cultural or ethnic cleansing to create a superior race. It only takes understanding and love to do that. Seeing others and accepting them as we expect to be seen and accepted. Stop closing doors to protect our prejudices against others and welcome them in our lives and not trying to change the other, but to change together. Overcoming ourselves is where the change begins.

It is not our race that defines us, it is our race we let separate us and until we understand that it is our prejudices and ignorance that define and separate us, there will never be a change, but rather a constant struggle to change. It's time to stop struggling and realize it is lives that matter.

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