Its amazing how the hatred of the civil war has been passed on. I was stationed in Pensacola from Jan 1963 to Sept 1966 and the southern guys always referred to us from the north as Yankees. My daughter moved to the Alabama coast and she was a damned Yankee in the 90's. When in Pensacola I was told there were 3 kinds of Yankees: one that came down on vacation and went home, Damned Yankee- one that came down and stayed for awhile and went home, God Damned Yankee- SOB comes down and never goes home!
So after over a 100 years the war still goes on.
Sunday Morning program had a segment on Emit Till today
and I couldn’t help feeling disappointed that the primary issue was not shared on how we move forward.
…. Freedom of expression and the requirements that come with that.
If we teach our children the requirements that come with freedom of choice, expression and speech, that foundation, IMHO will inspire them to be more open minded about different choices from different people who choose differently.
After Emitt Till whistled at the pretty shop owners wife, if the culture back then was one of open mindedness to differences of thinking, acting and behavior ( All aspects of Freedom of Speech ) then would they have overreacted like they did ? …..
Now here comes some radical open mindedness, understood by most, but unwilling to speak about, due to push back by populistic powers. So here we are ( The Human Race) destined to repeat lessons learned long ago, by refusing to give understanding and forgiveness to the perpetrators, because if you want to really learn how to improve, we must shine a spotlight on the perpetrators Upbringing and be open minded to understanding, Accepting, and Forgiving. When enough people strap on a pair of Tough Forgiveness, that’s when real improvement starts.