Opinions are like assholes...

I love CNN. They tell a good story. I'm serious, like, they go and find the person that will put the worst most realistic face so that people sitting on their cozy asses at home might feel half-compassionate. The sad thing is how desensitized we can become to the plight of other living, breathing, feeling human beings. Tangent.... At work today, we were discussing an e-mail someone got and whether it was racist or not. I was sitting in my dungeon cubicle (in the back office, all alone, hidden away from everyone) listening to my all-white southern-born co-workers talking about the class/race issue and Hurricane Katrina. I could only IMAGINE what it said. I finally couldn't take any more and asked to read it. I read while the whole office of 6 people debated or defended, I should say, this e-mail, obviously written my a young Texas man, and his experience helping evacuees in the AstroDome and being offended by them not thanking him and being greatful for their cots and water whining about losing their homes and being too DEMANDING! It was rediculous! Even more rediculous was how the racism came POURING out of some of them. I couldn't believe the things I was hearing. I understand, now, why their was a Klu Klux Klan and Black Panthers. People are brainwashed and blind...on both sides. Southern whites feeling like black people are lazy and wanting everyone to give them somehting they didn't earn. Southern blacks feeling victimized and discriminated against because they are black, poor, and can't take it anymore. I asked myself, what would lead a person to shoot at someone there to rescue you? Maybe this person is so angry, so desperate, so washed of any type of human compassion, not caring about proper social interactions. These gangs of guys going and raping people (a 13 year old girl!) in the convention center. I heard of this girl who's husband was shot and she was gang-raped. I don't know the factual details, but I ...i can only begin to imagine her level of suffering (and I've suffered A LOT...those of you who know me most know the things that happened to me). What pushes people to behave the way they do? I read an article (maybe I posted it) about the best and worst being brought out of people, but what made those people the way they are? Not the color of their skin for sure, or is it? What you look like determines a lot about your experiences in life...even your personality. It's how you cope with the world in place around you. And now I see the argument on CNN b/t the levels of government in human form and the poor hispanic population in Kenner who barely speak English who are totally lost that's been for gotten. They have no house, but FEMA wants to give them food, water, and ice, but no roof over their head. The woman says "no more house" and "they don't come back" and it breaks my heart! Once again, I don't know the facts, but watching tv, I see FEMA falling apart. They are undertrained the former leader, an attorney with no disaster experience. Is this Bush hiring his buddies and putting them in high-level positions. Feel free to correct me with the facts...I'm all ears. I'm biased, I am...I admit it. I called my church today and said we should challenge the members to adopt a person to "mentor" from another race, kind of like Big Brother/Big Sister. I think it would be great for all of us to experience that other viewpoint. It helped a lot when I went through CASA training as a minority. The majority of the kids, staff, and the volunteers where black and I'm white. I was also a student worker in their office and can you believe it...they were teaching tolerance and understanding of another race and I was being discriminated against...I said I lived in the ghetto (Tigerland in Baton Rouge is college ghetto) and I was taken aside by a white woman who said one of the black supervisors was upset. Now THAT is what I call rediculous. Aren't their white ghettos, hispanic ghettos, and other 3rd world country ghettos? I really wanted to ask "Does everything have to be a BLACK thing?" I would love for a black person to read this and offer advice on their view of my level of racism...can it be called that? ...I want to help rescue the animals that were abandoned by their owners in New Orleans. I want to open a recycling business. I want to be a famous play writer (I've never even thought of writing one for real until today). I want to go to law school and become a judge...maybe even be on the Supreme Court someday. Maybe I could run for office and mabye I'll be President someday. I want to go to seminary and study religion, maybe join a convent. I could get so deep into my mind that I learn to fly...I'll be one of those flying nuns the Dalai Lama heard of before. Maybe I'll go to Israel and the Kaballists will read the right Hebrew letter in my forehead and they'll teach me the Torah and the secrets of the real universe. Mike and I can become National Geographic photojournalists and travel the world together. I'll write books that will be studied, I'll make my brother famous, I'll save my family from their ignorance and poverty. I will write a book that becomes a movie...i'll be a director...that's it. I'll make new kinds of art. The art experience. I'll write songs and they'll be famous. It's so much easier to be lazy and sit here and type while I dream. One step at a time.