3 Things We Need To Eliminate From Political Discourse Immediately

As we look back on history, there have always been conflicts and at least two sides to every story. If we all agreed on everything every time, there would be no conflict. Therefore, the fact that there has been so much conflict in human history serves to demonstrate our lack of agreement on just about everything over the centuries.

And while conflict can sometimes be deadly, it is our diversity in opinion that is what proves we are alive and have our own free will. And what makes humans human is the ability to disagree and maintain civility and society through those disagreements, though on many occasions, being human has also resulted in the exact opposite.

But there is a constant throughout the history of human conflict and it is that conflict has remained civil as long as one side has respected the other side’s right to disagree with them, and once that respect to disagree disappears, conflicts spiral out of hand, civility goes out the window, and things get very, very messy until that respect to disagree returns.

Far too often political content published in America today immediately marginalizes the emotions and beliefs of detractors to the author’s point of view. While the author may not agree with the opposing view, and obviously has a right to disagree, to simply come back and say that those emotions and beliefs should not exist, regardless of how misguided the author may feel they are, is, at best, impractical, because those emotions and beliefs do exist, otherwise, there would be no need for the article to have been written in the first place. Right or wrong in one person’s view, someone’s emotions and beliefs exist – despite how much the opposing side may wish to marginalize them.

American political content also far too often is written with the notion that somehow a person who believes things the author opposes is somehow responsible for actions other than their own. A case in point is when someone asks why there is no white history month and is immediately classified as racist and held accountable for the sins of an entire race of people, even though he himself may never have actually done anything other than have a simple curiosity about the fairness of a race not having a history month.

Thirdly, there is a very disturbing trend in political content in which content creators are assuming certain individuals have enjoyed a much easier life because of their present circumstances, or worse, because of the color of their skin or their heritage. Case in point is this line I pulled directly from an article: “Certain people have the social and economic world constantly working in their favor.” This would mean that this group of people have to work less hard in school, have to work less hard to get ahead in the world, and have some sort of minimum safety net guaranteed by their race. This notion of privilege that is becoming more prominent in America with each passing day promotes the belief that a person of a particular race who continually messes up at work, doesn’t have the skills to hold down a job, or simply stands on a street corner and puts their hand out, will automatically have more than a person of another race who is dedicated to their career and works hard everyday.

While I understand that America’s struggle with racism and fair treatment regardless of skin color may be far from over, and while I also believe that continual race baiting by politicians and activists is actually prolonging racism is this country, I also believe that this notion that the lighter your skin, the more people hand you things – the less that you have to work for what you have – is completely and totally ridiculous. This notion of privilege and forcing people to feel guilty for the color of their skin is as completely ridiculous as the view that someone is less of a person or somehow inadequate because of the color of their skin. These two concepts go hand in hand and are equally as incorrect and wrong.

Rather then finger pointing and declaring that some people simply have things handed to them while others have an entire system of government and society stacked against them, we should take to heart the notion that we were all created equal and that we are all equally abled regardless of the color of our skin. Instead of this notion of privilege, we should return to promoting self-reliance, self-worth, opportunity, personal responsibility and personal accountability.

I, for one, believe whole-heartedly that the color of one’s skin truly has no bearing on their ability to accomplish goals, no bearing on the limit of their imagination, or on the success that they can have in this country. I believe our own self-doubts and the acceptance of victimization by society is a far bigger culprit. Once society starts expecting less of some than others, we see this horrible pattern where those who are expected to do less start to fulfill that prophecy.

I believe we should teach every child in America that their opportunities are limitless and that they can achieve any goal they set out accomplish, not that these kids over here are going to breeze through life, and these kids over here are never going to amount to anything because of the color of their skin. We can do better than this, America.

I grew up in one of the poorer neighborhoods in our town and I went to a public school in that neighborhood. I struggled with authority in high school and I struggled with paying for college. I have been pulled over by the police for fitting a profile and I can show you the tickets I received from those police officers that during the same month cited my race as Hispanic when I was driving my Volkswagen Jetta and cited my race as White when I was driving my Mercedes-Benz 190E. But one thing remained constant throughout all of this time during my upbringing, and that was the fact that the people around me continually told me that I could accomplish anything, and that the limits of my American dream were only up to one person – that only one person controlled my destiny – me. No one told me because of the neighborhood I grew up in, or because of my appearance, or regardless of how poorly I was doing in school at the time that the cards were stacked against me, that I was unprivileged, and that I had to accept anything other than a destiny I created for myself.

I was taught to be respectful. I was taught right from wrong. I was taught the importance of education. I was taught that if I wanted something, I needed to work for it. I was taught that there were no handouts and that life is what you make of it. When we teach kids that these things are all predetermined and out of their control, we are teaching them a horrible lesson.

We need to do better as a society and a people in the lessons we are teaching and the realities we accept. We need to no longer marginalize the beliefs of others that may not align with our beliefs. We need to stop blaming an entire race or group of people for the actions of a few. And most importantly, we need to stop channeling these two horrible habits into teaching our kids that some of them are inherently better than others – that some are more privileged than others – and go back to teaching them that each and every one of them can accomplish anything they set their minds to – that they are equally worthy to every other single person out there – and that they can accomplish anything that any other person can accomplish.

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