(Note: This is the challenge. It will take about ten minutes to read the following. See if you can answer the question at the end. Honestly.)
The Fiber of America is the set of values we were taught and which we incorporate into our lives willingly. Our forefathers were wise enough to recognize the importance of Godly values in a society. Hamilton, Franklin and Washington were emphatic: A person who didn't go to church or didn't have God in their life wasn 't suitable for citizenship in the new nation. Even Jefferson couldn't argue the fact that these values, although rooted in religeous observance and practice, were universal in a just society where the rule of law treated all of the citizens equally.
And it's these values that have gotten diluted in recent generations: the greatest generation was raised with high moral standards as the turn-of-the-century family was a strong unit in the US. During their lives, the Baby Boomers were raised in a prospering nation, and the war years drew the citizens closer for their mutual survival. But subsequent generations weren't raised with as strict demonstrated adherence to these values. The 60's 'free love' movement was destructive to the morality of the nation, and this moral decline continues with significantly less religeosity in the general public.
Right now, a cultural blemish is on our nation. An indifference to suffering and violence, and a kind of paranoid-response mechanism towards adversity. Whenever anyone is offended or disappointed in any way, there seems to be a feeling of reciprocation instead of critical thinking. In other words, you've offended me: how can I get even?
It was clear ten years ago that kids no longer considered it possible to fight without the mortal decision being "a given". Guns were so prevelant and kids were too quick to shoot each other. This is not to be confused with gang violence. True gang violence in mostly commercial: there's money and territory involved. With teens and wanna-be gangstas there's a glorifying of the gangster lifestyle, but there's no real teeth in their actions. These teens want to appear tough to their peers, as teens have always felt the need, but with the ease in aquiring guns, there are many mistakes made. Fatal mistakes.
But guns aren't the cause of the deaths at the hands of a gunman, it's the person holding the gun. It's the choice to use deadly force. Its the path that person has taken to get to this point: How did it come to this?
In the Trayvon Martin case, he was walking, after dark through a residential neighborhood which had been enduring burglaries and vandalism in recent months. So much so, the community association put together a watch program. While on watch, volunteer George Zimmerman shot Trayvon after an altercation which was witnessed by several different people from several different vantage points.
There are many points to be made out of how this story was presented by the media, how it was percieved and how it took off across the nation. Now there are daily protests in the streets of not only the town where the killing took place but across the country. These protests are peaceful, and call for the resignation of the percieved guilty parties, but they foment bad feelings, and it's especially trajic when the facts of the case are bearing out the fact that Trayvon was the aggressor.
The most important point to be made has to do with personal responsiblity and its the crux of the crisis our country's morality is going through. Why would anyone ignore the truth to persue a path they know in their heart is false? They are blinded by pride!
Pride ignores the personal responsibility and seeks out like offenders to deflect blame. Pride seeks elsewhere for the cause of the problem when in the heart, we know we are to blame. Pride refuses to acknowledge the mistakes and bad choices made in the past, and makes us look for someone or something to blame for the trajedies that befall us.
Pride is a powerful force in self-deception so the question is clear: "Can we be honest with ourselves?" , and if so, lets admit our guilt and set a course to repair the problem. Ultimately, we need living examples to fortify our will and resolve. Kids need role models, true, but I think we all need role models.
Won't you please become a role model for your brothers and sisters around you? If you become a leader, your neighbors will look to you for reinforcement in this new, exiting way of personal responsibility. this new way of working and striving with obvious joy will effect the children.
Hope and change will emerge, as will a new day for all of us.
-katykarter
