On Having Broad Shoulders, Being Politically Correct, and Harry Reid
Senator Harry Reid apologized recently for opening his mouth and speaking. I don’t know what he said and for the most part I really don’t care. The world isn’t going to stop turning because Harry Reid uttered something racial, inane, and stupid. It, however, reveals something about us that is depressing, evoking emotions that are a waste of time and really don’t concern anyone of this generation; unless you are into self-immolation and enjoy pouring salt in open wounds and picking scabs. You may ask at this juncture, what am I talking about? What made the Reid gaffe politically incorrect? It was racist. Directly or indirectly, he was talking about Black Americans whose ancestors were hauled to the Americas as slaves. That’s what he’s apologizing for; that’s what makes it politically incorrect. The irony is that as a nation we feel the need to continue punishing ourselves for what someone did to someone else one hundred and fifty years ago.
We have this need to punish ourselves for the sins of our fathers. I don’t like it. I wasn’t at Wounded Knee. Neither was my father or grandfather. I didn’t imprison the Japanese Americans during World War II. My father could have, but he didn’t. He did spend three years concentrating on killing Japanese soldiers and sailors. When he yelled for mother to call the Jap because he had a sick cow, I could understand his choice of words. The fact was the vet was of Japanese ancestry and we loved him. At the same time it was difficult for Dad to forgive the Japanese for the boys that died in the bowels of the S.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbor. It was difficult for him to forget. But that’s not my problem. It was his.
I surely don’t need to spend my life apologizing or suffering for Custer’s mistakes on the Little Big Horn. It is not my fault that someone in history owned slaves. I don’t need to apologize for what the Catholics did to all those women during the Inquisition or what the Mormons did at the Mountain Meadow massacre. Or even more recent: I don’t need to apologize for what Hitler did to entire sections of the German population. It was horrible, yes, but it wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t even born. Most of us weren’t.
So in a few words, “It is not my fault.” And at this point in history it isn’t anyone’s fault. All of the perpetrators are dead. It’s history.
Today isn’t history. Whatever we can do something about and don’t . . . that is our fault. We are citizens of the world. Everything we do directly and indirectly touches everyone living. So yes, the starving masses on the Sudan are our concern. They are our fault if we do not do something. The millions dying and the thousands of women being sexually abused in Central Africa are our fault as are the children going to work this morning in the diamond mines of the Congo. The twenty-two-year-old girl, named Amanda, sitting in the depths of an Italian jail simply because she is an American– that’s becoming our fault.
Let me shorten it up for you. We shouldn’t waste our time commenting on Harry Reid having “politically correct” language and we should be spending our time helping the one in need, the one we can help. Maybe if we all do it, collectively we can help the world and get out of the mess our forefathers have put us in.