An old man's opinion Piece
I am a sole family survivor fast approaching my mid nineties. I write true stories, and upload them to my website to leave for my children as an indicator of how I lived my life from day one. All my life I have never disrespected a person due to their color or creed. The reason, just the way I was brought up.
My title will ring a loud bell but this article is not about my life, just an opinion piece regarding Black Lives Matter indicating that people of all colors and races have suffered the indignities of being harassed both physically and mentally. No matter where you are in the world, if you don't fit in you are in for a rough ride. There seems to be no borders for despicable people, when it comes to their interaction with fellow human beings.
I quote my mother when I was only 7 years old from another article.
"Poor things nobody loves them"
I am a white Englishman. I'll start again. I am a human being born in the 1920's in a tiny village surrounded by farms in the English countryside. We were all poor. It was like having one big family so we looked after one another in that context.
We were some 20 miles from England's second largest city Birmingham, but virtually isolated. When the village began to expand with new houses being built and it was discovered that people from the city were moving in, a hostile atmosphere developed.
The villagers did not like it one bit, and kept remote. The nickname for people from Birmingham was "Brummies" and so it started. "You can't trust those bloody Brummies etc." The same thing applied to the Welsh, Irish, and Scots, but remarkably not to people from other countries. Including colored people who would knock on our door selling fabrics etc. They were given the same respect that we would give others in the village, because they always conducted themselves with dignity
Getting back to the brummies. Did it get resolved. yes, but without the interference from the press, government, or organized groups, just ordinary people eventually finding their levels and able to live in relative harmony. This didn't mean rushing across the street and embracing a "Brummie" at the drop of a hat. Just a brief nod and a smile both ways were enough to keep the relationship alive, and it remains so as a fully integrated society after nearly 100 years. Solved by ordinary folk.
Here are just a couple of incidents amongst others during WW2 to indicate that you don't have to be black to be ostracized
I travelled the world at sea during WW2 and whilst my ship was awaiting in the US for passage through the Panama Canal to serve in the Pacific I was beaten to the stage where I could not stand, pistol whipped, and shot. Just because I was an Englishman. During the beating they used the term "Limeys" " you bloody Limeys need to be taught a lesson." I met good American people during that time so my good feeling's about America stayed intact.
A Link to my story Chesapeake Bay
On another occasion when my ship was in Capetown South Africa I would go to Delmonico's for a meal, drink, and entertainment, and then walk back to the ship. A gang of 6 or 8 people would follow me on the opposite side of the road hurling insults at me. I would beckon for someone to come over. No one accepted, and then the stone throwing started and I had to get out of there quick smart. Yes, I was being harassed because I was white, by dare I say it a bunch of no hopers, only concerned with their own narrow agenda at the expense of others. Not even considering that there are lots of good people out there what ever color or creed So, I say to "Black lives Matter" "All lives Matter"
After the war I married, emigrated to Australia, and stayed there for 20 years. Here is an extract from one of my articles, to continue the theme.
Sticks a stones will break your bones but nicknames will never hurt you
Australian “where do you come from mate?
Will Bonner “England “
Australian “so you’re a bloody Pommie then”
And suitable names were attached to all immigrant nationalities.
Italians… “Ities” or Wops.
Greeks…” Greasy Greeks”.
French…” Frogs”, and so on across the board.
When things got heavy going in the workplace with respect to social interaction, you could be confronted with the following.
“You bloody Pommies come here and think you can take over the place”
or,
“Why don’t you bugger off back to Pommie land where you belong”
All the above is a mild interpretation of an atmosphere that prevailed during those early days.
So how did things get resolved?
Well, if you walked away and whined, leaving things up in the air so to speak, allowing your sensibility to be damaged, you could expect the insults from some quarters to keep coming thick and fast.
On the other hand, if you adopted a method of firing back a suitable response, in a typical Australian style, eventually, over time the rhetoric subsided into a jocular exchange, and your ethnic handle into an introductory form of endearment,
Australian “I’d like you to meet my Pommie friend”
By that time, you discovered that you had a new friend. This happened to me many, many, times during those early years, and also experienced by my friends of other nationalities It turned out to be an instinctive way forward, in a melting pot of diverse cultures, and you looked forward to the day. when he would drop the word “Pommie”.
So, what was absent during those times that allowed this natural phenomenon to happen?
Human Rights Commissions and their lawyers were thankfully non-existent.
Once you get into the courts invariably someone wins, and someone loses, and the conflict between the parties continues afterwards because their basic instincts have not been satisfied.
My Australian experience taught me that with plenty of work available ordinary folks are fully engaged in cementing a future for their families and when confronted with problems of an ethnic nature or otherwise, they are perfectly capable of sorting things out for themselves.
Today’s complex and troubled world seems to have lost that basic approach, and now turn to organizations and government entities to find solutions to their problems.
Bad news, Bad news, Very Bad news!!!!!!!
People can live together even if they insult each other; it’s a human failing, not solvable by government. Let's learn to absorb, and not turn everything into a legal saga.
I had a wonderful 20 years in Australia. Then 20 years back to my birth place in England, not so good, and finally the last 30 years + in retirement with my family in another wonderful country Canada.
Now to the present time. Year 2020.
I read the news on my computer every day. Don't know why. I must be a devil for punishment.
Two things dominate the front pages.
1. The Pandemic.
I was never one for Politics. The different parties always seem to be using the Bills that come before them as weapons to gain power, with the disguise that they are debating the issue at hand. It was so when I was growing up as a boy 90 years ago, and from the higher levels of government down to county council's it continues to this day.
I simply can't come to terms with the fact that when an occasion arises such as this recent pandemic, with thousands of people dying, all the parties find it impossible to join forces for the brief period of time necessary to find the best way forward. It is disgusting to see them taking pot shots at one another with a national emergency in effect.
As an old man I say. " It will never change" why, because the young men and women leaving universities to enter politics have already been groomed to fit in and take us into the next generation, of the "same old, same old."
Where does that leave us. I could say, up the creek without a paddle, but that doesn’t even begin to describe where we are really at. I think we are now living in a very confused society, and perhaps a plausible reason might be that we are all looking out at “them” and not back at us.
Another quote from one of my articles.
When we are together as a family, we are not Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats, or Republicans, just folks trying to progress from one day to the next with the least possible resistance. So, let's not be “their” echo chamber, and start talking about us not “them” and I don’t mean me, or you “Lets talk about us”
2. Black Lives Matter.
Yes, I see the video's showing hundreds of demonstrators shouting with their fists raised, and looking beyond the crowd young men breaking into shops and stealing the goods without any reprisal. I am told that the raised fist meaning has been changed to become a symbol. " when it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it's a duck" and I am sure that there are an element of thugs and no hopers in the crowd that would love to wack you with that raised fist if you did not think their way.
I wish you the best of luck, but with the benefit of a long hindsight, and other past movements, I think you are looking at a long haul, and a somewhat fractured result.
Incidentally what ever happened to the sophistication of Martin Luther King's 250,000-man protest march on Washington in August 1963. To me a marvellous example of a demonstration. Looking at today's crude attempts he must be turning over in his grave
What I see for the future as an old man, is not much change, if any, in the way that certain elements in society behave.
During all the demonstrations and press releases I never heard it mentioned that the African governments and tribal chiefs were complicit for years in rounding up their own people and selling them to the slave ships, and foreign governments. That is until I read an article in the New York Times 2010, about this very subject.
Here is the Website link.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/opinion/23gates.html
The read is mind blowing and poses the question, why haven't the African governments been involved, by the Black Lives Matter movement, and others, surely reparations belong there also. One can only speculate.
A final extract from one of my life stories.
In conclusion, I have never been a politician or an activist, just an ordinary person struggling to get from one day to the next. So I say to all the people that gave me both physical and mental trauma over the years and have since long gone.
My body is still functioning albeit limited, but my mind is completely at rest.
" It was a good try but you failed"
Now that you are "down there", I hope you are getting the same treatment that you gave me, so you know what it feels like.
To all the good people "up there" Thanks a million.