Rural America and urban America, are they really different?

Both are underserved by their elected leaders.

Both suffer from the absence of economic investment.

Both see the absence of real jobs.

Both are forgotten by educational institutions.

Both lack 21st-century infrastructure.

Both have stagnated wages.

Both shop at the only store in town, the dollar store.

Both cash their checks at a Payday Loan.

Both have lost hope.

If they are both so alike, what keeps them from seeing each other’s plight?

Racism.

I am white.

Was raised in the middle of white racist suburban, rural America.

Where everything, including God, is defined as the head of the white race.

Where the first question you ask is, where is that person from?

What is their race?

A queer reality permeates the community of white America.

White America believes the thing that keeps them from being in the same boat as black and brown people is their whiteness.

Somehow whiteness grants a boon, a step up, a benefit of the doubt.

Given the right circumstances, the rich, the wealthy, the aristocrat, the ownership class will invite them to their cash orgy.

It’s their witness that grants superiority even in the face of poverty.

The poverty of ideas.

The poverty of faith.

Poverty of spirit

The poverty of honor.

The poverty of community.

The poverty of empathy.

The perverse fear of reverse discrimination is real.

If equality was somehow made real, it is firmly believed black, and brown America will take revenge on white America.

As it was told to me over and over by one racist relative…

Universal health care…

If I had a broken leg and a black guy had a fractured leg under liberal Democrats, the black guy would be treated first, get their treatment for free, and I would be told to go elsewhere.

The idea that justice for all floats all boats is a fairy tale to racist America.

You are either on top or on the bottom.

This real fear keeps racist America from seeing their reality.

They have been forgotten.

They have been forgotten just as much as black and brown people have.

The problem is, has, and will ever be the wealthy.

They have gone by other names, aristocrats, the rich, the ownership class.

However, they remain the bane of humanity.

The takers.

Racism continues to blind us to the simple truth of greed.

If only the plight of racism could be waved away overnight.

But it can’t.

It is as much a fact as it is a belief in the human heart.

If we are to come together, somebody has to reach out a hand of compassion.

Somebody must be strong and say, welcome friend.

Someone needs to say my table is open; come eat and be joyful.

That someone can be you.

You can be the bridge where the forgotten meet.

You and I can be hope.

It begins today.

Now.

DFrey

Peace