Sick and Sad

"My Tram Experience" went viral this week. If you haven't seen it you can google it. But its not the video that I found so upsetting. Enough people on the tram were standing up for themselves and for eachother, although their actions, while well-meaning, were probably just egging this hateful woman on.

What disturbed and genuinely saddened me were the responses to this woman. After seeing it, I viewed some of the YouTube response videos, read some of the comments - I was expecting outrage and sympathy for the people she was attacking, and maybe even a heart-felt apology from other decent white folk on behalf of our race. I found just the opposite. Maybe it was the comfort of anonymity that the internet provides, but hundreds of people spoke up in defense of this woman's vile and ignorant rant, cheered her for it, proud that somebody "finally spoke out"

The more things change the more they stay the same. Sometimes I wonder if we have made any progress at all. It made me sad, and it made me think of this speech:


"The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are - perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my Chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the Sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

Chief Joseph - in surrendering to General Nelson Appleton Miles after long evading a pursuit nearly to the border of Canada. (October 5, 1877)