Native Writes

As women edge toward equality, people who somehow believe they are “better” than others are gaining ground.
Hate is everywhere online and its targets are not truly defined.
There is probably hatred in the Valley, but it’s no longer visible.
It was huge when I was a kid, growing up.
I remember when “Mexican” kids could only swim in the pools on the day they were to be cleaned.
Naturally, I asked, since most of my friends had been shoved into that category.
“Well, they don’t take baths and they have all that grease in their hair,” I was told.
I went home and told my mother, who hit the roof. Not literally, she was less than five feet tall, but the air seemed to turn red.
Her immediate phone call to the pool operator didn’t effect immediate change, but I like to think it set the ball rolling.
She naturally accepted people for who they were. Each was an individual and deserved equal respect until someone was definitely wrong or committed a crime.
Even then, she wasn’t on the bandwagon for immediate punishment. That’s where I learned to respect the rule of law.
I have respected it for the most part, since I have studied it and its purposes. I can still see where it has gone wrong.
As an adult, I told someone shouting “lock her up” that the target person needed to be charged with a crime and then found guilty before being locked up.
The response was an ugly sneer.
In his mind, jail was immediate for anyone he didn’t like or agree with politically.
As I view the nightly news, a habit I have had since my family first got a television, I see more and more persons taking the law into their own hands, becoming judge, jury and executioner.
Innocent persons die and there is an outcry. If the bad person was arrested, I have confidence he will be dealt with as the law allows.
It may not happen. It’s “justice for some,” not “justice for all.”
We pledge allegiance to the flag, but some apparently just recite it out of habit.
It has become a prop in the great drama of life.
Here in the Valley, we recite the pledge, but I don’t believe we listen to it. I recall needing to relearn it after President Eisenhower inserted the words, “under God” in it to “show” the “Godless communists.”
Posts online declare that the pledge needs to be returned to schools. As far as I know, it never left.
Open prayer did and I am okay with that. The First Amendment rules that and I can guarantee individual prayer is alive and well. That’s why we have test days and finals week.
Every morning, I thank God for our nation, flawed as it is, and our Valley, safe as it is.