Is it Love or Fear?

I just had an exchange with a friend that may change my life.

He said as a Buddhist he learned that every action is an act of LOVE or FEAR.

I thought about this for a few minutes and I get it! He's exactly right. I am no longer bothered when a non-black person calls me "nigger" because I do not fear those people anymore. At one point bigots had government power supporting them and could hurt us with impunity. But no more.

There are currently many fear-based myths being repeated ad infinitum in the media and on the Internet. When I've encountered people who repeat these hateful myths (largely because it makes them feel better about their circumstances), I've often been annoyed, even angered. But I know now this is a waste of my energy.

I have nothing to fear from these people or the notions they're spouting. They have no more power to stop the changes occurring in the world than I do. From now on I will consider them with love and try to imagine what has happened in their lives that drives them to interpret the world in such a fear-based way.

Thanks, Enzo.

The Ground Zero Hysteria

Very few people welcome change, and we are in the midst of a mighty upheaval here in the U.S. and throughout the world. Things will no longer be what they have been. It is these shifts in the collective consciousness that underlie the delirium over Ground Zero as well as the Tea Party nastiness.

There is a hysterical fringe element in this country who cannot abide the world's changing dynamics. These folk who have always seen power have a colorless face that matches their own, now feel immensely threatened because that period of Eurocentric hegemony is coming to an end. (For their information: the sun has been setting on the British Empire for decades now.) They see that the fastest growing economies, and therefore the ascending powers in the world, are China and India, two nations of color. In addition, the birth rate of immigrants from South America, Central America, Africa and Asia outpaces the declining birth rate of non-colored people here in the U.S.

And the most outrageous affront to this fringe is that we have a President of the United States who is of African descent! This has so unhinged their sense of what is appropriate that they disrespect him and the office in every possible way. And their fury is nourished by the attention they receive from a sympathetic media, many of whom also want to "take the country back" to the past when colorless people were unquestionably running everything.

Some of these folk are probably the same ones who were also indignant when women and blacks insisted on equal rights. Those battles were won and most of society has moved on, but still some unhappy people defiantly cling to the old ways.

In time, they will either come to terms with things as they are, or wallow in their misery as the world continues to evolve.