Monday, November 16, 2015

Support, Solidarity For Paris, For Humanity

Logging on to social media can be good. It can be bad. And it can be downright ugly.


I’ve seen more than one post ranting about why are “we” supporting France/changing our profile pictures to the French flag because the “French hate Americans,” etc. This is, simply, FALSE. I’m sure there are some French that do, just as there are some Americans who hate the French (as demonstrated by said tirades). Nonetheless, it is this same bias, prejudice, discrimination and animosity that fuels the hate-crime “mindset.” It is also not true that all Muslims are terrorists, that all blacks are criminals, that all college graduates are arrogant, that “all Italians should be hated,” or any of the other generalizations, ad nauseam, that I’ve heard over the years. How are “these” attitudes any better than those that caused the atrocity in Paris?


This is a quote from the company I work for (a global company with businesses in France) about the events in Paris, “It is, therefore, with great sadness that I report that this tragedy has touched ‘our’ family directly. An employee and his wife were among those who lost their lives Friday night in Paris. They leave behind an 18-month-old baby."


THIS is why we should and need to support France. For this now parent-less young child and for anyone else effected.


I don’t understand how we are not supposed to care?! Why should we not care?! It’s called COMPASSION. It is heart-wrenching to me that some do not instinctively have this quality.


It was with true horror that I watched the news after the 9/11 attacks and witnessed people cheering.


----CHEERING?----


Cheering at death?


Cheering at father-less, mother-less children?


Cheering at the pain and suffering of others?


Cheering at the heartbreak and mourning of an individual, a family, an entire nation?


While “you” might not be “cheering” at the deaths that occurred in the tragic events in Paris, you are not empathetic or even sympathetic. It rests easy on your mind and heart because “they hate us anyway” or any other rationalization for your abhorrence of an entire group of people. This produces the same kind of “horror” deep within me.


To care and show concern for others is what makes us human and we need to do this regardless of where a person was born, the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, or anything else that one can single out as being distain-worthy.


To the 18-month old baby... I am praying for you... America is praying for you.


"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Martin Luther King



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