With global warming, I could let some people slide back in the day; because it really seemed so distant. One could excuse the older generation when I was young. After all, they hadn’t grown up observing Earth Day. By now, though, with accelerated climate change evidenced by more and bigger hurricanes, a heat wave in Siberia, and the ocean lapping ever so slowly, but steadily, up the beaches, boardwalks, bayside towns, and city blocks of our largest metropolitan centers on each coast, there can be no doubt. Climate change deniers just argue the cause now, ceding the obvious effects.
Two major upheavals have occurred in just the past few months, though, that do not allow time for ignoring or ignorance. The pandemic is raging out of control as a result of irresponsible decision making from the very top of our country all the way down to individuals who are willing to sacrifice the health and wellbeing of our most vulnerable citizens in order to satisfy their own vanity or somehow “express their rights. Wear a mask, please!!
Concurrently, a white lady is covering over the Black Lives Matter mural, painted with official permission, in Martinez, California. Another white lady pulled a gun on a black woman in a parking lot, screaming, “Get back! Get back!” Oh, we must not forget the white lady holding a confederate flag while yelling, “Yeah, I’m gonna teach my kids to hate you! I’m gonna teach my grandkids to hate you!” – only to say later, after her rant went viral, she had a blackout and doesn’t remember a thing, assuring anyone who will still listen that she would never say those things. I could stop there but I would be remiss not to mention the white lady who purposefully coughed on a baby in a stroller because she was irritated that the mother was speaking a language other than English. Sadly, I could keep going. Hey, white ladies, “You’re not the center of everyone else’s world. Treat ALL the people with whom you come in contact just the way you want to be treated. In short, quit being whiny assholes.”
At this point, you might be thinking, “Why are you acting like the problem is just racist white women. Not all white women act that way.” Well, I am a middle-aged, white female, and I’m calling these people out because I can. That’s white privilege, too, that we need to use.
SurvivingSara 