I have to admit that today I am very disillusioned and having a hard time considering what I want to write about for this article. I am an educator, having taught more than 40 years in Texas public schools, at the community college level, and at graduate school levels. I have always thought that United States education is among the best education in the world! The last several years have caused me to doubt that long-held belief. This is to me, heart wrenching!
Yesterday, I was visiting with a friend whom I admire because she IS ALWAYS working for the common good in her community. She basically works tirelessly all the time in service to her church, and she orchestrates the meal planning and serving for the small community senior center. She told me a tale that causes me to shake my head in disbelief. How long? How long before people finally understand the teachings of the Bible that they so loudly thump?
My friend’s family, son and daughter-in-law, live in a Texas urban area. One is a doctor. The couple adopted two young African-American children who now are my friend’s beloved grandchildren. A neighbor who is prominent in her own church and lives nearby refuses to allow her grandchildren to play with my friend’s grandchildren “because they are black”! Well, duh!
I say again, a lot of good “Christians” do not understand the words of Christ that are “written in red.” Again, I paraphrase my Louisiana-born grandmother who lived to almost 101 years of age, “a lot of good Christians are going to burn in hell for the way they have treated people of color!”
I listened, like most Americans this week, for the verdict in the Chauvin trial. Some people expressed relief that the defendant was found guilty because they did not want the "Black Lives Matter" group to again protest in the streets of Minneapolis. Isn’t that missing the point? Isn’t the point that Chauvin killed a man and was thereby guilty, at the very least, of manslaughter? We all watched!
I sat with a friend whose husband was a retired police officer, and she was upset with the guilty verdict.
Folks, like all human beings, there are good police and not so good police! Let us laud the good ones and punish the ones who do not do their jobs, who murder and cause mayhem because of their positions of power! Remember the police on the Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama? This is an American shame that continues to resound throughout our modern-day history!
I started this article wondering at the status of American education. I have repeatedly said "to be educated is to question as Socrates did so many centuries ago." To question, also implies that we continually question our OWN understandings of what is truth. However, at some point, the questioning and probing should allow for final acceptance of truth.
Arizona Republicans are now conducting another, the third, major recount of the election in Maricopa County! Golly! Gee Whiz! The election is OVER! What is truth? Mr. Biden won! Get over it! To continue to deny this truth is to impugn your own education or lack there of!