Category: Politics

white concrete building
bullying, Politics, Prayer

It’s not about oppression, it’s about success

Katrina Russell

There has been a lot in the media in the last few years about the oppressed and the oppressors. How certain groups have more power and success in life because they spend all of their time oppressing other people. How there is a new group coming out of the oppressor group in order to “save” the historically oppressed people.

They are doing this by teaching people whether they are oppressed or oppressors, because nothing cures oppression like telling someone that they are oppressed and shouldn’t bother trying. They are also doing this by getting rid of tests and regulations that judge people based on the merit. The implication being that people of certain groups can’t be expected to live up to the expectations of the oppressor groups and therefore are being further oppressed by a society that values merit.

I’m not sure how teaching kids particularly that they are some how incapable of merit based accomplishments eliminates oppression, but that is the point. The people who talk so much about caring about and helping the oppressed don’t actually care about oppression. They only care about who is getting, making, or having more than they are. The goal is not to end oppression, but to oppress the successful in order to steal more power for themselves.

If you ever want to know how someone feels about oppressed people ask them what they think about the Jews, and specifically Israel. Jewish people are the historically the most oppressed people in the world. They were slaves in the age of the Bible. They have been homeless since they were first enslaved. They have been told they can’t work. They have been murdered. They have had an entire world against them, and yet they are the one group of people to never tried to conquer anyone else. That’s actually their thing. They don’t look to convert. They are a race unto themselves not just a religion. They don’t stop those who choose to convert, but they do not send people to your door on a Sunday afternoon, and they have never invaded anyone.

In 1948. after it as discovered that millions of them were killed for no reason, it was decided by the world that they needed a safe place they could call their own. People are angry about this. People are angry because a piece of land that had been historically Abrahamic territory, but was invaded and stolen by others was being returned to them. The same people who complain about Native American land being stolen by white settlers because, “The Natives were there first” complain that the Israelites got their land back. No race has ever been more cohesive than the Jewish people. They are not just a religion but a race as well, and they do their best to keep their way of life unchanged for centuries. Where as the Native Americans were thousands of different tribes who came to the American continent over thousands of years and spent most of that time killing each other to extinction.

Jewish people, however, are known to be hard working. It’s part of their culture. No matter how many times they are knocked down, they keep their heads down and keep working for their families and their faith… and they are hated for it. There is no group in the world so universally hated. There was just a hostage situation in TX in which a Muslim extremist specifically targeted a Synagogue on the Sabbath, and took hostages. The news kind of mentioned something about a UK man taking hostages but they weren’t sure why… it’s over now, it doesn’t really matter.

Except it does. This was a terrorist attack. This was a hate crime. The fact that a Muslim extremist specifically targeted a Synagogue on the holiest day of the week was not a coincidence, but let’s not make people think poorly of Muslim terrorist… that wouldn’t be PC.

If oppression, and not personal choices is what causes inequality and poverty then how does one explain the Jews. They are the doctors, the lawyers, the accountants. They run the banks. They are the evil rich people… who have been historically oppressed by everyone. People don’t want to help the oppress. They just hate the rich. If you don’t believe me. Ask them how they feel about Israel.

Healthcare, parenting, Politics

Freedom is Hard

Katrina Russell

Freedom and rights are hard concepts to understand. Most people are under the impression that each of these represent things that should be given to them. “I have the right to have a house or a new iPhone or whatever medical care I need therefore you must give it to me.”. But those are not rights. Those are desires. You have the right to purchase any of those things and no one should be able to infringe on your rights to work hard and accomplish things, but that is not the same as being given something.

As people we have the right to be left alone and to do as we please. The choices we make then decide the life that we lead. This has become completely turned around by everyone. Most people in our society and in every political party seems to think that freedom means doing whatever one wants without consequence and rights are to have whatever they choose without the needs to work for them.

Growing up my father always said that the job of a parent was to raise children to be independent. Children who can take care of themselves after the parent is gone, and hopefully take care of the parent after they are no longer able to care for themself. That’s freedom. Not having to depend on others. That’s rights, being free to make decisions that enable you to be free, and all of it is hard.

Now, just to be clear. I am not opposed to social programs. I live in Massachusetts, and we even have a socialized healthcare program that was put forth by Mitt Romney about 20 years ago and has been working pretty well ever since. I am quite liberal on many of these subjects, but they are not rights. No one has the right to food that they didn’t grow or buy themselves. No one has the right to someone else’s labor. However, if in a specific community people decide that they want to help out their fellow neighbors in need with programs they choose to pay into that is also freedom, and their right to do so. The right to do what they wish with the benefits of one’s own labor is a right, and a freedom. Someone who feels they are in power over the people telling them they must give up their labor to someone else is extortion.

The flip side of this is cancel culture. The act of looking for anything that someone has ever done that was questionable and then spreading it to everyone possible in order to ruin someone. Those who believe in cancel culture say that it’s all fair because with freedom comes consequences and actions have consequences, which is true. The actions themselves do, but, for instance, the teenage girl who used the “N” word while quoting a rap song to tell another white friend she got driver’s license when she was 16 years old and then was not allowed into the college of her choice years later because someone held onto that information for the perfect strategic moment to inflict as much damage as possible is a classic example of the actions and consequences not matching. The girl didn’t use the word with racist intent, and she was a child when she said it with a very limited understanding of the world and the rules that go with it. This may have been a teaching moment at most, but not a nuclear bomb to her life moment.

Today we are seeing a serious push against freedom everywhere we look. We are seeing people’s speech being censored, we are seeing places of worship being shut down, we are seeing people’s jobs and right to work being eliminated, and we’re seeing all of this under the guise of “leaders” keeping us safe. We are being told that we have no RIGHT to know what our children are being taught in schools, and that we have no RIGHT to speak out against those who are in power regardless of whether or not we are correct in our assertions or not.

We are told that our safety takes priority and that those in charge are the ones to make that decision. That is not how this country was designed. That is not what our forefathers fought for, that’s not what anyone agreed to when they chose to move here from wherever they came. This country was settled by people who were willing to fight and die for the lives they chose to live. It doesn’t matter which settlers we’re talking about. Whether it be the settlers who came over from Asia for thousands of years, the Europeans who came over for hundreds of years, or the many other groups who are still fighting to come over today.

The Asians (now called Native Americans or First Nations or whatever new term of the month it is) and the Europeans came over and dealt with harsh weather, new species of animals, and which ever groups of people had come before them. Most people died. Thousands of tribes of Natives were made extinct before the Europeans even knew this place existed, and hundreds of settlements never made it through a winter once they did, but group after group still come.

Today we see caravans of people walking thousands of miles from South America. We see families risking life and limb in shark infested oceans to just set foot on our shores to gain the freedoms we take for granted. Millions of Africans, Asians, and Arabs have come in the last hundred years knowing that they have to learn the language and the new customs to fit in with our society and they welcome the opportunity, because they know that our society isn’t easy, but if they work hard their children and their children’s children will have a better life here.

Freedom and Rights are not about the to stay safe or the right to never die. Freedom and Rights are about making choices that fit your life and no one stopping you, especially not the government you employ to protect your rights. If you want more privileges, then by all means ask for them. Talk to your communities about sharing the responsibilities for those who can’t or those who won’t, but don’t pretend it’s your right to control someone else or to take the fruits of their labor. That’s just theft, and you have no right to that.

aerial photography of rock formation
Politics, Prayer

Morals without Religion

Katrina Russell

I was born in the 70s and raised in the 80s and 90s. This was when a really big push away from organized religion and more towards “spirituality”. At least in the US. I was not raised in any particular religion, though I was brought up with Judeo-Christian values. My father had gone to Catholic school as a child and hated it. My mother was a Protestant who later developed schizophrenia and became obsessed with God talking to her.

Growing up my dad would read the children’s Bible to me, and we watched an awful lot of the History channel, so I learned about a lot of religions. The reasons behind them. Their beliefs. Their corruption. When I would do sleepovers as a child my dad would encourage me to go to church, or Temple or what have you with my friend so I could experience things on my own.

When I hit my late teens I started to really get into the Wiccan religion. This was around the time of movies like, “The Craft” and teenage girls were all drawn to the mystery… and Skeet Ulrich. This was also around the time of other outside religions becoming more popular. The ancient ones like what the natives and druids practiced as well as the more recent Buddhist. People were more about being one with Earth or the Universe than to answer to an overbearing Father figure.

I remember it became very popular for people to say, “You don’t have to be religious to be moral” and I agreed. I was particularly religious. I had gone to church a handful of times since my parents had split when I was a baby. I didn’t follow any doctrine or worship at any specific alter. I just knew what was right and what was wrong. I knew it was wrong to lie, cheat, steal, kill.. I knew it was wrong to be disrespectful to my dad or my grams. I knew that it wouldn’t do me any good to be envious of those with more or to be spiteful to those with less. I knew the Golden Rule was Golden not because some God told me so, but because it made sense and it felt right.

When I learned about religion I learned about philosophy and psychology and politics. I understood how people could say that all of the rules being spouted were more about leaders trying to keep a citizenry safe and obedient. How the same rules that God laid out in the TEN COMMANDMENTS were very close to the rules that were taught in “everything I need to know I learned in Kindergarten”.

Religious doctrines are rules created by which ever gods the religion believes in, and religious leaders decide are best for the people to abide by to create a working civilization. Some are good and some are bad, and you can tell their worth by how successful the society is. In some religions as in some politics there is a choice to make one the better and one the least of us. Good leaders treat everyone as an equal and gives everyone the same rules and same opportunities. This is something that the Western Enlightenment. Specifically, the Protestant Enlightenment has been fabulous at. For 10s of thousands of years tribes have been conquering, enslaving, and killing off other tribes. In just a short couple hundred years the Western Protestant Enlightenment changed all of that.

No one other than the Western Protestant Enlightened countries has ended slavery, has given women and children rights, and has even given its citizens the right to not believe in their God. You don’t have to be Christian in this country founded on Christianity, but you do have to follow their rules. Their morals. You don’t have to be religious to be moral… but you have to be moral. This country is losing their morality. We are becoming a country of literal Satanist. You think I’m kidding or being hyperbolic, but there are many who are turning to the “Satanic Temple” or some variation thereof. Their belief is that the individual is GOD. that all that matters is the individuals wants and needs and desires.

It is no longer about being a healthy and productive part of society. About creating a world that is better for your children and your children’s children. People today don’t want children. They don’t want to get married. They don’t want to work. They don’t want to pay off the debt they have accrued. All of those things are too hard. Being faithful, and respectful, and responsible is something other people used to do. The people who lived by the patriarchy or the theological bigots. People today want to do what feels good to them at the moment. Who cares who it hurts? Including themselves later.

So, now that I’m older, wiser, and seen more of the world. I think you do need some religion. Some guiding force. Something to help you become a good, strong, healthy member of society. Because left to one’s own devices no one will ever grow up… and no one will ever take on responsibility if they are not taught to, and civilization can’t be healthy without it.

Addiction, bullying, Mental Health, Politics

Just because you can laugh doesn’t mean you should

Katrina Russell

Social media is one of my favorite things. I’ve not going to lie about that. I have been on Facebook since MySpace got crazy. I have Twitter, Insta, LinkedIn, GETTR…. and so on. I love connecting with my friends. I love following my favorite PodCasters and news outlets. I even love following news outlets that I can’t stand anymore, just so I know what is being said.

I am very actively involved in my feed. Especially on Facebook. I’m in my mid 40s and that’s pretty much the demographic for that site. The moms of the world buying/selling on marketplace, setting up play groups, getting family event ideas and sharing all of our picture of our kids… fur or otherwise.

I like, comment and share my way through the day. I love the new “care” feature that has been added. It’s really good for people my age who have to comment on all the posts from friends whose kids are sick, who are losing their parents, who got laid off from a job, or are getting divorced. You don’t really want to like or love those posts, but you want to react to it in some way to show that you care…. viola! The share button is invented.

The one thing that I don’t understand is how people use the laugh button. I mean it’s really very sick. Especially with all the Covid information going about. I’ve read posts about people who have been locked down losing their homes, or their kids committing suicide, or businesses burned down during the BLM riots last year…. and the response is someone laughing. Laughing at kids committing suicide because they believe that none of that matters as long as we prevent Covid from spreading.

There is always a constant stream of people being diagnosed with Covid. Some of those people have chosen not to take the vaccine, because they know that no one knows the long-term side effects and they would rather take the chance with a virus. Then they get infected with Covid, and people hit the laugh button and comment that they hope that the person dies. People are hoping that other people die because they choose a different course of action in medical treatments.

A good proportion of this country in particular, but the world as a whole has become a cult in which if a person isn’t with them, they are against them. People are hoping for the death of their friends, family, coworkers, or fellow human beings because they make a different choice than themselves. They laugh at other people’s pain and heartache because they disagree with their perspective.

All over social media there are posts about Narcissists. Everyone claims to have dated one or be raised by one or to have worked for one, and I used to think that people were just being dramatic, but now I see that it’s true. Of course, the same people who are making the claims are they, themselves Narcissists. They are angry and lashing out on their Narcissistic mate because the other Narcissist didn’t cave to their own Narcissistic demands.

No one wants to get married anymore. No one wants to have kids. No one wants to take care of their parents. No one wants to work for their own welfare. Everyone just wants to take what they feel and laugh at other’s who disagree or get in the way. No wonder drug use and suicide rates are so high. Without empathy no one can have a truly meaningful life.

Giving, Homeless, Love, parenting, Politics

Ask Not What You Can Do For Your Country….Privilege!

Katrina Russell

I was not alive when Kennedy made his famous speech, but I was raised by the people who were. I was born 12 years after his assassination, and 10 years after the civil rights movement… smack dab in the middle of women’s lib. I was raised by a single father who understood that his son and daughter were different, but also understood that we could both be whatever we set our minds to.

My father was only 2nd generation American. He remembers his grandfather’s brogue. He remembers how hard he worked. My grandmother would tell me stories about her father and how he used to sell fruits and vegetables out of a horse and carriage in the middle of South Boston. How proud she was of him. Even after his wife died and he was left with 5 kids to raise on his own.. he worked and supported his family. He taught his children to go out and make a life for themselves. All of his sons, a lot of his grandsons, and now his great grandsons did just that.

My father was not educated. He dropped out of school on his 16th birthday, and went out to get his GED so he could help support his single mother and sister. His father had taken off on them a long time ago. He signed up for Job Corp and learned skills that he could use to create that life his grandfather used to talk about. He got married and had two kids.. and yes, eventually also became a single parent when my mother got sick with schizophrenia. He eventually realized that he would also need to strike out on his own and start his own business. With his last commission check he filled out all the right paperwork. Contacted a supplier and the day after Thanksgiving he headed out the door to ring up old clients that he had sold power washers to and offered to sell them the soaps that went with it. He worked a lot.. at some times in my life it was 7 days a week. He worked hard. He was always banged up and burned from the acid. He was the best man that I’ve ever known.

Look back our lives were not what people would call privileged, but it was.. it was very privileged. Not because we were white. Not because we never had to struggle.. but because we were born into the richest more free country in the world, and we never forgot it. When we slacked off in school my dad would tell us that you get nothing for free, that everything worth having is worth working for, and that no one is going to do it for us.. and when I say us. I mean me.. my brother was a nerd. When I would say that I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up he would tell me that it doesn’t matter. “what ever you do. if you work hard and are the best at it.. you will succeed.”.

He never told me that the government would take care of me. When I was looking at schools we discussed different options, but decided on starting with Community College so that I could pay as I go and not collect debt, because no one was going to pay it back for me. I was born in the 70s but we were taught that with hard work and discipline we could accomplish anything.. the skies the limit. This included me. The girl from a small town with a single parent family. We all came from single parent families.. and unfortunately my son is following the pattern. His father died when he was 6. It was really sad, and really tragic.. but not an excuse to give up.. and not an excuse to not give life his all.

I look around today and everyone is talking about privilege.. and in the same breath claiming that they are some how OWED things. They are OWED higher education. They are OWED free health care.. they are OWED what ever they want because they were born in this country and this country is a country of privilege.

All I can say is WOW.. you are right.. this is a country of privilege. You have the privilege to say what ever you want. You have the privilege to practice whatever religion you want. You have the privilege to protect yourself from the State… and you have the privilege to become whatever you choose. What you do not have is the privilege to take things from other people who have worked hard for it.

I look around and all I see are grown people who were never allowed to be hurt. Who were given trophies just for being alive. Who were given good grades because it’s not fair not to even though they didn’t do any of their work. I am seeing people who are being taught that to be human means that everything is owed to them. That because other people have things that they should be allowed to have things too.. that “no one else has it as bad as us”.. yet, if you look around the world.. if you look through the history of this place.. no one, not ever, has had it as good as Americans. Even the most poor. Even the most damaged. They are still better off than 99.9% of history every.. and of most of this planet now.

If you think you deserve to go to college and earn a “women’s studies” degree on the rest of the country’s dime.. or that you deserve to have all of your medical expenses paid just because you happen to have the good fortune to be born in a particular hemisphere you are very mistaken. Now I’m not opposed to a state run medical insurance.. my family has had the need for Medicare or mass health since we live in Massachusetts. I had student loans eventually when I went for my BA and I was glad that the the government could help. The difference is that I am grateful. I understand that I am lucky to live in a such a place, and I do all that I can to give back where I can. I don’t just complain, and expect it.

Gratitude goes a long way in life. It makes the difference between someone feeling as if life matters.. and feeling as if only privilege does. So I ask you to check your privilege.. and if you can volunteer at a local homeless shelter and see how they live.. and then travel to a developing country.. and see how the rest of the world lives.

bullying, Mental Health, Politics

SJWs and Privilege

Katrina Russell

There is a lot of talk about privilege lately, and there is something that I’m beginning to notice. A lot of the SJWs who speak about white guilt and privilege are actually privileged and I seem to actually feel guilty about it.

I’m pretty sure that’s where the disconnect lies. A girl that I have known her whole life posted a… I want to say meme, but I don’t think that’s what it’s actually called, on Facebook. She is a very sweet, very smart girl, but also very privileged. I’m not saying this as an insult as the post stated. It is not an insult. It is just a fact of being. She was raised in a two parent family. Her mother is a teacher and was there for her everyday after school. She always had a nice house. She always had big family parties, plenty of food, after school activities. She was given her first car. Her parents helped her with high end college.. she was quite privileged and I am very happy that she was because I love this little girl (she’s 24, but I’ve known her since the day she was born so bare with me).

The problem is that she assumes that because she had it so well that everyone else like her also had it as good. She doesn’t understand that there are people out there like her, and by like her I mean white, that did not have a two parent family. That did not have a mother at home waiting for her with an after school snack to help her with her home work. Some of us lived with single parents who worked all day and were too tired when they got home to cook. Who looked through the couch in hopes of finding some change so they could walk to the store and buy a candy bar or bag of Jax so they could eat that day.. some of us lived in Volkswagen Pintos as a toddler and again in a car as a teenager when they were kicked out of the house.. some of us had drunken step father’s who would hug and kiss us smelling of beer, and telling us how if we were just a little older they’d have married us (when we were 9).. some of us were kidnapped as a child and brought to live in a cult till we were rescued. Some of us spent years hiding from our mother so that didn’t happen again.. some of us didn’t have birthday parties, and had to walk to work everyday for months to save up and buy our first car. Some of us had to actually work full-time while in college to pay for it.. and some of us, even going through all that understand that we are still more privileged than others.

My problem with white privilege and the message that it sends is that it’s actually racist. It assumes that white people are better than people of color. It assumes that just by the fact that someone is black that they automatically had a worse life than someone who is white. Now I’m not saying that I wasn’t more privileged than some.. I was.. everyone is. But that does not make my life, in general better than anyone else who happens to be darker than me… which as a pasty girl of Irish decent is pretty much everyone.

I would never categorize someone as being less “privileged” than me.. as if I were special for some reason, just because of my skin color. As if someone who is black or brown couldn’t possibly have had a better life than mine because of it. That is racist. I’ve known black people my whole life.. they are everywhere if you haven’t noticed. They are not all inner-city poor people. They do not all need us whites to help them out of their situation.. they are not all less than privileged because of their race.

From what I have seen of the SJWs they conflate black with poor. They conflate inner-city with criminal. They conflate white with better. They conflate white with master.. whites can either save or destroy at their will. We are either “helping” the poor black people or we’re “oppressing” them. That’s racist.

People talk about how blacks are portrayed in the media and on TV, and maybe they are right. When I grew up the Huxtables were on my TV every night. He was a doctor (the character, I’m not going to get into the actor), she was a lawyer. The kids went to college. They were strong, smart, independent people who happened to be black. This was how I was raised. This is my understanding of people, but a lot of TV shows, movies, and music is written with blacks being either poor or thugs. This is the same Hollywood culture that cries to defund the police and that Black Lives Matter. The way I see it black lives only matter to the SJW white elite to the point where they can be tokens for their political ideology.

If someone points out that the biggest problem for the POOR blacks is single motherhood, high school drop out rates, and gang violence, then the person is a racist. If someone points out that, though blacks have the 2nd highest percentage of people living below the poverty line (Native Americans being the highest), they are only 20%.. meaning 80% are not. 80% of Black American’s are just like everyone else and getting by just fine.. that is racist. Anything said that DOESN’T describe blacks as a victim is some how racist… that’s racist. White, upper class, privileged Americans should not get to dictate how people think about anyone else.. that’s racist.

bullying, Love, Politics

What happened to conversations?

Katrina Russell

Open communication is the most important thing in any relationship. Anyone married couple or councilor will tell you that. Our ability to communicate so completely is a lot of what separates us from the apes. We can talk. We can read body language. Hell when we know someone well enough we can almost read their minds.

So when did communication and conversations become so toxic? When did it become, “Think like me or you’re evil!”? This is true in personal relationships, public affairs, and just about any way that people interact at all.

Social Media is obviously the worst. People sit behind their keyboards and talk so much crap it’s ridiculous. Names are called, threats are spewed, and nothing is accomplished. I was raised in the Boston area, so I was always pretty liberal. I also went to public college and studied in the soft subjects of History and Poli-sci, so I’ve made a lot of liberal friends. I’ve also made some conservative friends. I always loved debating them. I’m one of those people that likes confrontation to a point… especially when I think I’m right… but I also LOVE to learn new things when it turns out that I’m wrong.

My first History class in college I had the best professor. He was this little Joe Pesci looking guy who came in on the first day, climbed up on his desk, and said, “I’m from the toughest borough in the toughest city and I’m not taking any crap from any of you.”. It scared or confused some of the kids in the class but I thought it hilarious. He made history fun. He told stories about the past like he was talking about a book or a movie character. He added details and opinions and made me want to learn more.

One day he was talking about politics and said that one needed to pick a side. You couldn’t be “undeclared” as we call it in Massachusetts. You had to pick, Republican or Democrat, that was the only way to get anything done. I thought he was wrong. That seemed like the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. I sat in my classroom, listening to this teacher that I had adored and admired and thought was so smart and I completely disagreed with everything that he was saying, and for some that may have made them question their own beliefs, but for me if just made them stronger. I loved my professor. I agreed with him on so much.. but not everything. I didn’t have to. I was allowed to disagree with him, and I was allowed to respect him. That was the best lesson I could have ever learned from college.

I post crap all over social media. For a long time, especially after Trump was elected I posted a lot of Liberal media. My friends on the right would comment or critique and I would chat back with them inquiring on why they disagreed and what they thought may be a better idea. My left friends would jump on with insults and disparaging remarks and I would shut them down and tell them that I would not allow them to insult my friends. Even the ones that I disagreed with. I earned some respect from the right for that.

Now, I am a centrist. I completely agree with a lot of what the Liberals say, and I completely disagree with a lot of what they say. I completely agree with a lot of what conservatives say, and I completely disagree with a lot of what conservatives say. I still continue to post articles and videos to my page. I still continue to ask questions and debate my friends, and I still continue to shut down anyone who throws insults at those who disagree.

I am not a Liberal. I am not a Conservative. I am a person who loves to talk about what I feel with others and listen to them in return. I am constantly changing. I am constantly growing. I am constantly learning new things. I don’t believe that anyone who has other’s best interests at heart should be labeled as evil or a fascist or anything else. I don’t believe anyone should be canceled for anything that they say… even the evil and the fascists. Without open conversations and debate no one will be able to learn. No one will be able to grow.

What ever happened to conversations? And how can we learn without them?

bullying, parenting, Politics

I was told that I’m racist

Katrina Russell

So I was recently informed that I am racist. I found this to be a very perplexing statement given that I was told that I was racist specifically because I don’t care about race. Has the world gone mad?

I was born about a decade after The Civil Rights Act. I was raised in a small town. It was prominently white, but there were definitely people of color mixed in. I never really thought about it. I had friends in my building whose parents were from Africa and they had names that we could never have guessed how to spell, but they were just normal to me. I knew them for as long as I could remember. I had friends from all over. It didn’t really matter to me what color you were I was more interested in playing tag or swimming or riding my bike. If you wanted to as well you were my friend. We had kick ball games in the front yard with everyone in the neighborhood. We didn’t break up the teams in black vs white, or boys vs girls, everyone played with everyone.

When I reached my teen years I moved to a suburb outside of Boston that had what was called the METCO Program. This program gave kids from the inner city a chance to go to school in the suburbs for a better education. It turns out I had lots of friends in the programs. I didn’t know that for a good couple of months when I first started at the school. I had never heard of the program before and even when I did hear about it the thought never occurred to me that just because someone was black they MUST be from that program. A friend of mine had a car and we used to go into Boston and visit the friends we had met from our schools. We weren’t their white friends, and they weren’t our black friends.. we were all just friends.

Through out my life I have been friends and/or dated people of many different races, religions, sexuality.. and what have you. I didn’t think of them as my Asian friends, or my gay friends, or my Jewish friends.. they were just friends. I treated all of my friends the same. I have treated all people that I meet the same. I was raised to not judge people by the color of their skin but by the content of their character and apparently… that makes me a racist.

I’m told now that it is not good to treat everyone the same. It is not good to not pay attention to race or sex or any other immutable trait. That I am to ONLY pay attention to such things and that I am to give special attention to those that are different than myself. Now I’m not talking about getting to know about other cultures. That I’ve always done. I’ve asked my friends who I knew spoke another language to teach me some phrases (not just the dirty ones) or write my name. My dad encouraged me to attend different religious events and festivals for different cultures so that I may learn about things that I may be interested in myself.

I remember once as a teenager I volunteered for a City Year service day. I ended up being assigned to a local inner city Boston school that was being cleaned up, and I was asked to watch the kids that were there while their parents did their work. I was so happy I always loved taking care of kids. This school was in the middle of a section of Boston called Mattapan. It’s pretty much all black people. I was playing with the kids.. I still remember some of their names, and I still use it as an example of one of my proudest moments… not because they were black, but because I used my time there to teach one little boy in first grade who didn’t know how to read how to do a word search. He was so proud of himself that when his friend came over to give him the answers he told him that he didn’t need them and that he had learned to do it by himself. I hope that he took that with him. That he learned that everything that he wants to do it within his power and that he can do it all himself.

I remember at lunch all the tween girls were braiding each other’s hair and one of them came over and asked if she could touch mine. I have VERY straight.. Very blonde.. Very silky hair. She had never seen anything like it before. Her friends all chimed in saying that she couldn’t ask that. They said how rude she was. I smiled and told her “of course you can.. you’ll never learn about anything new if you can’t experience it.”. The rest of the girls were so excited and they all wanted to take turns brushing and braiding my hair. I didn’t think it weird that they were interested in learning something new. I found it weird that they had never known a white girl who’s hair they could touch. I’d known plenty of people of color in my life in a small town and we all played with each other’s hair.

In fact this wouldn’t be my last conversation about hair with a black girl. About a decade later I was sitting at work and someone had come in with a perm. A friend of mine, thinking out loud said, “how do you get the curl to stay? how come it doesn’t just wash out?” Again.. confusing to me how you can live in this country.. watch all the same TV commercials and not know about general products. I explained to her that we use chemicals similarly to how she used relaxers for her hair to straighten it. Her mouth dropped open. “HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT RELAXERS?!?!”, as if it were some top secret information “for black eyes only”. I had no idea how I know about it. I just did. It was part of American culture, therefore part oh MY culture. I didn’t think of it as a black thing or a white thing.. it was just a thing.

I have had many conversations like this over the years. I love to read and learn and grow as a person and part of growing is learning about things that don’t revolve around yourself. Things that are important to other people. People just like you who may experience different things. That’s how I was raised. I was raised to not think about race, religion, sexuality, or anything else that may make us different because in the end we’re not. In the end we’re all the same. And, that, I’m told.. is what makes me racist… at least according to my white friends.

Addiction, bullying, Love, parenting, Politics, school shootings

The world is on fire… and what do I tell my son?

Katrina Russell

The world is on fire, or at least that’s how it feels right now I was born in the mid-seventies. The Vietnam War ended a few months prior. By the time I was in grade school Reagan was president, the cold war was coming to an end and my reference to the whole thing was Rocky IV. I had some understanding of the Berlin Wall that was based on an episode of “Benson” and an episode of “Head of the Class”. By my 14th birthday the wall had fallen. All I knew about the Middle East are have vague memories of planes being hijacked by Iran. if I recall correctly, but for the most part things were fine.

My aunt would tell me about the bomb drills they used to do in 50s, as if hiding under their desks was going to protect them from an atomic bomb. I saw movies, TV shows, and eventually learned about Jim Crow laws, separate water fountains, and bussing. We lived in Massachusetts so it was a part of our past good or bad.Growing up I couldn’t imagine that people of color were ever treated that way, never mind in my father’s lifetime. It was all so bizarre. I was friends with everyone. I had classes with everyone. I had cousins of mixed races. I watched the Cosby show on TV (who knew where that would go). Everyone wanted to be Michael Jackson. I don’t remember a lot of race trouble at all.

Being from the mid-late 70s I was also raised on the record/movie “Free to be You and Me” by Marlo Thomas. speaking of Michael Jackson. He had a clip in the movie himself. pre Thriller. This was all about not judging anyone by their sex and letting people just be whatever they wanted to be. Again I knew that women used to not be able to vote. I knew that the 70s had bra burnings and feminism and all these crazy thing, but when I was a kid no one cared if you were a boy or a girl, you better be studying your math homework. When asked what we wanted to be when we grow up no one ever said that we couldn’t. I came from a time of empowerment for everyone. Well gays still had a way to go, but by the time I graduated from high school in the early 90s no one cared about that anymore either. at least not in Boston.

Then right before the turn of the century. Right before “The Year 2000”, when everything was supposed to be wonderful and futuristic, Columbine happened. I remember sitting in my car and hearing about it on the radio. I remember buying a newspaper. yes, they did exist. and reading about the horrifying events and how they unfolded. This was the beginning of the end of my innocence. Two and a half years later September 11th happened and our country was no longer safe.

This is when race started to become a factor again. I don’t mean just the occasional asshole in the after school special, but real racism. People of a certain look were starting to be hated. They were starting to be attacked just walking down the street. It wasn’t even a certain religion at that point. Anyone who looked like they could be from that middle region at all were the enemy. I remember “Harold and Kumar” made a movie about it. Kumar, who is Indian, is automatically assumed to be an Arab and a terrorist. It was done in a comedic way, but it was still a powerful statement.

From there things have just continued to get worse and worse. I’m pretty sure a big reason for this is the internet. Suddenly everything that happened everywhere was on everyone’s screen. Instead of it being a local story about one bad thing happening to one person it was look at how this happens all the time to everyone. Instead of kids being bullied on the bus, they were now having bullies push their way into their homes through electronics. Instead of the local news only talking about big stories that really mattered, suddenly news was 24 hours a day and needed to be more and more sensational to get the attention of the millions of viewers.When a child shot up a school their picture and name were posted everywhere. This created a perfect avenue for those mentally unstable individuals to claim their 15 mins of fame. When a man raped a woman, it wasn’t just that the man was a dirtbag. it was that ALL men are dirtbags. One story would link to other stories with similar scenarios. Now instead of a half a dozen losers in the whole country, it was, “look at all these guys everywhere. All men are rapists. Instead of a couple of racists assholes who caused problems. and to be honest I don’t care which race, religion, or creed it is there is an example of all of them. And because they all link together it’s suddenly happening everwhere

.I first noticed this when I became a mom and everyone was bashing other moms for feeding their kids grapes, leaving them in the car seat to nap, running into the gas station to pay for the pump while leaving a sleeping kid in a comfortable car. suddenly there were stories being forwarded to all the moms with horrible outcomes. Moms were no longer allowed to pee, or shower, or sleep. If they did they mine as well just give their children to kidnappers who want to either sell them to the sex slave industry or murder them. They mine as well suffocate them themselves, because children die all the time by being left in their pack n play while the mom pees by herself. Here are 10 links to similar stories to prove I’m right and you should have DCF called on you.

We had a black president elected into office twice. A lot of the people who voted for him were white. They did not vote for him despite he was black. They didn’t vote for him because he was black. They voted for him because he was a person whose policies they agreed with. After he was elected the country was suddenly racist. I’m not really sure how it happened. except that the people on the right didn’t like him. So therefore they were racist. Anytime he was criticized it wasn’t because they were being stupid or petty. It wasn’t because they didn’t like his policy. It was because they were racist.

The right tried to impeach Clinton. They dragged him and his sex life through the mud. They attacked his daughter, they trotted out victim after victim of his sexual advances. They made fun of him. They made his life Hell. not because they were racist. He was white. But because they were assholes. Once Obama was in office no one was allowed to just be an asshole anymore. They HAD to be racist. It was the only explanation.

We now have to have laws to make people serve some potential clients no matter their religion, while letting other vendors refuse based on their principals. We have religions we’re never supposed to talk bad about, while other’s we’re supposed to blame. We have races that are always the victims and another that is always the villain. And don’t even get me started on the battle of the sexes. and if they even exist.

I grew up in a time when we were taught to not think about what makes us different, and I’m raising my son in a time when he is being taught that because he’s a while, Christian male he’s basically the devil responsible for the oppression of millions even though he still can’t cut his own PB&J sandwich. I thought it crazy my dad had to hide under his desk and my son is being taught ALICE (active shooter) training.

My son is only in 1st grade and he missed half a year of school because of a global pandemic, and now the world is literally on fire. What is he going to learn from all of this? What do I tell him when he asks why he’s so bad because of the body he was born into, because he was so privileged to be raised by a single mom after he lost his father to the opioid epidemic? What do I tell my little boy when the world tells him how wrong he is? I tell him the only thing that I can. The same thing that I told him when his father died. It’s not his fault. Everyone makes their own choices in their own life and I’m going to teach him to make the right ones. To not judge. To not blame. To love everyone equally.