During his inaugural address to the nation, President John F. Kennedy challenged the entire nation when he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country”. The country was at a tipping point and about to start a very tumultuous decade that unfortunately, Kennedy would not see the end of. Race relations were strained at best, the Jim Crow south was still “separate but equal” and actively embracing segregation and the country was incredibly divided.
The issue staring Americans in the face at the time was the moral and ethical dilemma brought on by winning the war to liberate two entire continents from the grip of fascism and socialism but not creating equal opportunities for its people in the homeland. Black, brown, and yellow soldiers fought and died for the liberation of Western Europe and Asia but still had to enter another place in the back door to be served in the south and use separate bathrooms. How could America, the land of the free and the home of the brave square those two competing ideologies? They could not and by the end of the 60’s many legislative laws would be put into place to guarantee rights and protections for all Americans. It was long overdue.
My heritage has always been weird for me. My mother is a white woman, she has some native American ancestry in her genes with her family being predominantly from Michigan and my father is Hispanic with his family roots being from Mexico. My skin tone is just light enough that can exist in both white and Hispanic communities without many issues. I know some Spanish and I love the food and cultural expressions from many different and diverse cultures. The main rule growing up when I was young that my parents instilled in me and my two younger brothers was this, “no one is going to give it to you, if you want it, you have to go out and earn it”.
While growing up in Southern California in the 80’s and 90’s I began to see the disparities between people and groups of people. I quickly learned that if I wanted something, I needed to get to work and hustle to get it, if I failed to get it, the only person I could blame would be myself. The main disparity, I noticed, was a desire to blame someone becoming more and more prevalent. Blame anyone, for the lack that a person had in their lives or the inability to live the dreams they had. Black people blame white people for systemic racism and creating a system that was in their words designed to keep them down, white people blamed black people for increased crime and the deterioration of neighborhoods. The sad fact was that everyone was pointing fingers at the other blaming external characteristics that no one has control over, instead of turning the finger to themselves and admitting they lacked the ability to hustle, grind and make something of themselves.
As I write this article I am struck by how simple and life-changing the message is, could it be so simple? Could the answer to this age-old problem have been sitting here all along but was so simple it was overlooked? The issue we face is that we have a checkered past when it comes to equity and equality. Both terms sound similar but are vastly different. The liberal left is currently spending millions to indoctrinate America with the concept of Equity meaning that we all have different circumstances, and we should all be provided resources to ensure the same outcomes. This is the bedrock principle of socialism rearing its ugly head attempting to utilize and play the race card to advance its ideals. Equality on the other hand essentially means you have the same circumstances and resources, are given the same opportunity and make of it what you will. If you fail, that’s on you, if you succeed, bravo that’s on you too. We live in a country now where there are endless possibilities if you just make the effort. There is no other place on planet earth that has the opportunity the US has and literally thousands of people each year risk their lives and die trying to get into our country.
Utilizing past problems to drive a future argument is perhaps one of the weakest ways to express your dislike of a situation. The liberal left has bought completely into Critical Race Theory as a way to “right the ship” and establish their goal of equity in this country. CRT, as it’s known, only sees “oppressor vs. oppressed” and no matter what, if you are a person of color, live in what they deem a marginalized community, or are LGBTQ+ you are oppressed no matter what your circumstances may be. If you were born white, then you, no matter what your actions have been, are the oppressor. As a bi-racial person, is one side of me oppressing the other? I am so confused by this, and teaching this to our children results in confusion and the continuation of the focus on outward issues and not internal virtues. When Dr. King made his famous “I have a dream” speech, many people seem to forget the lynchpin of the dream being that one day his children would be judged by the “content of their character and not the color of their skin”. Dr. King stressed that America would only be able to move forward and completely live out its ideals by looking inward and not majoring on the outward appearance of someone.
The left is obsessed with external appearance and promoting it as an attempt to virtue signal to hold onto and yield power. No more was this more apparent than the recent supreme court appointment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Under normal circumstances an appointment to the high court would be an amazing opportunity that would give the person the ability to help shape the very core of this country, but when President Biden decreed that after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, he would choose a black woman for the position he immediately lost credibility for his candidate. President Biden’s decree eliminated 49 percent of the population (men) and focused on a much smaller pool of possible candidates. Justice Brown Jackson forever will be known as the Supreme Court’s affirmative action hire to meet a self-imposed quota.
While I have done limited research on Justice Brown Jackson, I do wish her luck and hope she truly espouses the law for her career, however it bothers me that this highly educated woman could not answer a simple question during her confirmation hearings as to what a woman is. I do not care about the skin tone of Supreme Court Justices, all I want is the most highly educated, capable, and competent judge that will be able to rightly divide the law and interpret the constitution for their lifetime appointment.
When race is used as a way to divide people, you have to wonder the reason why and who has the most to gain from it. The Democratic party for years has prided itself on being a champion for minorities and those without a voice. A simple question to ask this November when you vote is how’s that working out for you? There have been minorities and women in state government, Congress, The Senate, the Supreme Court, and with the election of Barack Obama (twice) to the Presidency, and has that made it better? When calm, rational people can take the time and not look at the physical attributes of a person and rightly divide legislative policies, what decision do you think people would make? A black face for black people shouldn’t be an automatic comfort, we see that daily with Mayor Sylvester Turner (D) in Houston and Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) in Chicago, the cities they are entrusted by the voters to manage are overrun with crime, children’s schools are failing, and economic opportunities are few and far between, but they are black so that’s I guess that’s okay.
Ideas, political positions, and deliverable successes should be the main way our political leaders should be judged. The question should be what WOULD they do IF elected and what DID they do when they got into office? Your eyes can deceive you; your ears can deceive you, but if your brain can stop, remove emotion, and see past the lies, the decision is easy. Where are we now as a country? Is that a place we want to be? Do we want more opportunities for us and our children going forward? Or will we play the blame game for things that happened a century ago? Elections have consequences and if we keep choosing based on how people look or how people in our group vote and do not vet these candidates properly, we will keep this crazy downward spiral continuing. The choice is ours.
