Neither Here Nor There (Or, Can You BELIEVE Those People?)

I stumbled across a website the other day that says it strives for “forward-thinking journalism”, which of course means it far removed itself from true journalism very quickly. Journalism isn’t supposed to be forward-thinking or backward-thinking or any sort of -thinking other than projecting stories to the American people that they need to learn about. Opinions come from them, not from the “journalists” involved. But that’s neither here nor there.

The point is that they throw mud at those who they see as being backward-thinking, just as I’m sure plenty of backward-thinking people had thrown mud at them over the years. The common statement is “Can you BELIEVE those people?” more often than anything else. It would actually be quite appropriate to sum America up with a $100 bill where the US motto is replaced with, “Can you BELIEVE those people?”. But again, that’s neither here nor there.

I wish the point was to shame some certain people until we all got on the same page. I really do think it would be easier if there was one correct condescending statement to make that would make all the world right. Problem is that it has to be a statement grand enough to cover all the multitude of sins of all of humanity. “Everyone is to blame for this” is the truth of basically any matter at all, yet it is met with a collective “Yeah right” from everyone in the world. The one thing we can always agree upon: it’s not our fault or our responsibility. But that’s neither here nor there.

During times of rough racial tension in America, it’s amusing to watch the social media reactions. By “amusing”, of course what I mean to say is that it is mind-boggling. For every wise and insightful look at why life matters and how there are some people who definitely have something wrong, there are 700 more “insights” as to how everyone else has gotten everything wrong. Granted, many people speak out of the viewpoint of having experienced wrong. That make sense. It’s easy, when you have been the victim of injustice, to see how those who have wronged you should change. And granted, there’s a massive difference between being the victim of injustice and just getting your feelings hurt. But that’s neither here nor there.

The thing that always seems to be most confusing to me, however, are (and this is a statement that I wish I could word better but I can’t seem to figure out how) the white people who tell me that white people have done everything wrong through history. And while I’m not really disagreeing with that statement, what I find most interesting are the people who scream loudest about this sort of thing. I find them interesting because they often live in complete separation from the things they scream about. Screaming from the suburbs is surprisingly easy, and only made easier by social media, which gives the illusion of being connected to the trouble spots of the world. The people I know who honestly do care the most about these sort of issues live in areas where the issues matter, and they aren’t as vocal about it. There’s a humility that comes with it that allows them to connect to the people they need to connect with, allows them to sit under black leadership, and allows them to put their voice in the backseat to give the microphone over to the black voices who need to be heard. And if you’re tempted to get mad at me, you should know that the camp I sit in most of the time is not the one I am promoting here. We’re all works in progress, and as of now, I’m just an annoying white person with social media and a blog who is trying to do a little bit better. And blogs are the absolute worst.

But that’s neither here nor there.