It's hard to know, I mean if, how much and when. Harder now than say six months ago, when I pretty much concluded I had figured most things out. By seventy that seems fair, about right.
But then along came a pandemic, an economic meltdown and then ANOTHER murder of a African-American. I was going to add "without cause", but hell, murder is death without cause isn't it?
People took the streets. One was forced to wonder in the earliest hours of this tragedy if part of the reaction was people just wanting so badly to get out and mix with others. That notion was dispelled rapidly. Most were wearing masks, and astonishingly, lots of them were white.
Lots of people are discussing whether this is like the mid-sixties. I was alive back then, living in Flint, Michigan a factory town with very segregated neighborhoods. I remember seeing the images of black men and women being blasted with water hoses and german shepherds raging to be released.
I won't say that I was outraged. I was a teenager and my head was filled with anything but social issues, morality, fairness, you know equality. I lived in white land, I went to school in white land. Most everyone I knew openly used the "n" word and I was no different.
But the marches got bigger and well, legislation passed and Johnson signed it into law amidst smiles and congratulatory backslapping.
Outward appearances changed but not much else. I know, real change did occur, but I saw no difference in MY neighborhood, MY school. And for all kinds of reasons not much changed in Black America either.
So I'm not especially capable of judging whether today is different in a serious way from the 60's.
But I'm betting it is.
I'm betting we are on the verge of an awakening in the world, and I'll explain why.
It's a thing called cosmic consciousness.
Take the LGBTQ community. For years public opinion didn't budge much. Those who favored equal rights for our gay and lesbian friends were a minority and nothing much changed. But then, suddenly, in the blink of an eye (certainly not to the men and women who were victimized by hatred) things changed. Now a majority favored gay marriage and gay adoption. At least it seemed that way.
As more and more businesses, aware of the demographics of their customers, began to feature gay couples and gay families in their ads, sure there were boycotts but they were almost universally ineffectual. While no one was looking a whole bunch of folks decided that gay was okay with them.
We may be looking at something similar today. Now solid and rather huge numbers of white folk believe that indeed there is systemic racism in this country and always has been. The system as they say was set up to promote and protect the rights of white people to control the lives of black people one way or another.
But that doesn't explain how it happened.
That's where cosmic consciousness comes in.
The God I believe in is a persuader rather than a "fixer". I just can't reconcile free will any other way than to accept that God wills us to our highest self but does not force. He calls to each and every one of us each moment urging us to our most human.
Some of us hear really well, most of us don't but occasionally. Some of us reject goodness, rightness, out of hand, believing that weakness makes one a "loser". But regardless the whispers go on for all our lives.. But we do change, some of us, over the years. God brings it to bear on us and sometimes we listen.
We are finally struck by the logic, the evidence, the MORALITY of this new idea that finally takes hold. We convert ourselves and we become "better" people.
God, as always has been busy, whispering all these centuries. Finally, I am suggesting, the tipping point has been reached. The flood gates blow open and the waters surge around the world.
People are gathering everywhere. Statues are being torn down WORLDWIDE, that represent men (sorry but I've seen no statues of women) who were authoritarian, traitors, and other such refuse. We shout, no we scream, "Black Lives Matter" .
We see and feel that this is a holy moment. I call it the recognition, either directly or by "feeling" that when we raise up this "other" all of us rise with them. That is the idea that I think is taking hold.
We are beginning to see that so many of us are other. Not just African-Americans but Latinos, Asians, women, gays, transgenders, and the first "others" in this country our Native peoples. We are starting to recognize that right now those among us who need the most are those we were brought here against their will.
My hope and my dream is that this movement will continue and will travel to the next location and we will raise our voices to raise up that group who is being treated unfairly, and then another and another.
To those who think that we will simply become the new oppressors, think again. I don't think that will happen. If it does we deserve whatever fate lies in store, for we will have learned nothing.
But what I'm seeing around the world is not people who have learned nothing, rather the opposite. There is a quietness, a determined look, a steady eye. There is great pain, and deep frustration and a spilling of angry words often enough. But there is strength and a determination that this minute will not pass us by.
For God's sake, my generation, the generation of flower children and no more war, and countless claims of righteous equality to come, ended up failing America so badly that we are faced with a deranged madman at the helm of state. He will gladly take us to the pit of hell if it serves his interest of one.
Damn, we will not let this minute pass us by.
