We only know what we experience... Period.

We only know what we experience. Nothing else I am told or shown gives me true knowledge. It is just an idea to be applied as a replacement for not experiencing something that another has.

 I as a boy and young man was raced against. I was ridiculed on a constant basis being called “fat boy”. As I got older I soon became know as WOP. Then “Jew boy” along with “fat boy”. Know that, for me, my persecution from others held the highest level of relative persecution as anyone else’s.

Meaning that, ”my hell”, no matter what the data  (drama) is, has the same depth of pain as the hell any man may choose, no matter the data or drama.  And reversed, your level of Hell, no matter the data or drama, has the same allowed depths as mine.

My worth in this life has, as you could probably tell from above, been my biggest struggle and shadow.  I could have joined a group of overweight people so I would be accepted in that circle. I could have hidden out with other Italians “ The Family” and had my worth protected. When my parents took us as children to Jewish Community gatherings, all I ever heard was how oppressed we were. I had no desire to be that way. It was as if they wanted me to feel worthless in my own eyes and everybody else’s.

In Florida 6 summers ago I was at a public pool with all walks of life. This one young woman had her baby in the pool. An older woman sitting on the steps thought the young woman’s baby had actually “crapped” in the pool. The young woman got out of the pool as the older woman was screaming at her to not walk away from her. The older woman started going off on other people when they asked her to calm down. A Security Guard showed up and the older woman grabbed her son by the arm and said, “ There, you see, he’s here because were Black.”  I was taken aback, I thought to myself, “My God, this has nothing to do with you being black and everything to do with you being a complete out of control bitch to another human being in front of my children and everyone else’s.”  It struck me in the chest as I witnessed her son’s fearful eyes turn to hatred.  This is how my circle tried to get me to fear and hate as well.

The people of my own circle taught me to fear others because of how they were treated in the past

I keep hearing about the privileged white man. Well, in all circles there is privilege. And in all circles there is racism. If you lived my life you would not say that to me, even though I am, for all means, considered white. 

With 9/11, and my skin being olive enough, and my beard, has me being searched upon arrival at airports. I walk away knowing I am a fear projection of those who see me, and still walk away intact.

I choose to use, and wish the definition for racism would be expanded to this idea. 

Racism: is nothing more than projected fear upon another, no matter how much drama is or is not attached. 

If this definition was in use there would be a new understanding of racism as it applies to all, not just the privileged white man and those below. Look to Nigeria where Blacks have been in a civil war for twenty years over Blacks oppressing Blacks. Look to Kosovo where Whites in civil war are oppressing Whites.  It has nothing to do just with color and everything to do with fear.

Michael Moore hit it right on the head in “Bowling for Columbine”. When they talked about the Whites in their fear, moved from the cities to the suburbs, to get away from the angry “Black Mobs” that were going to come after us. And it hasn’t happened. 

So where do we wish to go from here?

This world we have all chosen to share and all of its boundaries are make believe, figments of our imagination. . Not a world of separate Homo Sapiens  “A world of people”. The vision of some White, some not, some Gay, some not, some Black, some not, but a world of Human Beings. Period. 

Now if on this earth I choose to start a separate circle within it, and then start wanting others to think about us more, am I not just creating separation from the whole circle of civilization?

The answer to this issue is not forced knowledge of how I am supposed to be the “Privileged White”. IF I accept that title I am going against everything I believe in, which is assisting others in not giving their power away to me. As long as we keep fighting to acknowledge the concept of a power differential between people of this world, we will always have a differential.

What I have witnessed over history is the fractioning of this world, the splintering of “Our human family”. The answer is simple. Some may not see the potential ramifications of the idea and it in itself is the very basic foundation of what we can do.

“A new Common Language.”

I am not talking about which Dialect we choose for everyone. I am talking about the purpose, intent and delivery of a common language.  

Ken Carey wrote in the third Millennium the following.

“The term language is the casting forth of a binding illusion. Language is the mechanism of matter’s spell, the means through which the spell is maintained from one generation to the next.

Understanding can be symbolized and to some extent conveyed through words, but understanding itself requires “historical culturalism” no more than a bird requires a cage. Understanding comes only through experience. And for experience, there has never been, and never will be, a substitute.

Instead of serving as a tool of our creative expression to help us sculpt, and mold, light and sound into forms of beauty and grace, we choose to speak from our cultural tongues that have defined us, limited us, and kept us in the narrow definition prisons of the cultures that gave them birth. “

The very attempt to hold onto “Historical Culture” destroys its living nature. The same fruit cannot be growing on the tree and preserved in a jar; it must be one or the other. The transformation as a “family of human beings”, by opening there hearts to abundance and love for all the people included, makes it so there is no need for cultural preservation.”

I believe we as a country are beginning to accept the understanding that to lock ourselves into a framework of someone else’s prejudice, however well intended is to worship a false God. It is to prefer the past oriented knowledge of another to my own present moment perception. 

I wish not to continue fighting over self-validating and self-defeating beliefs. Until we choose to quit fighting for individual cultures in this “Family of Humanity”, we will never find the permission and will to understand ourselves, our world. We all have the freedom to maintain the world we have chosen no matter how limiting. The role of consciousness in our cultural history has been to always break up the routines when appropriate, to give ourselves the opportunities to look at the world from larger perspectives.

These days we are finding more and more people who are beginning to understand that there might be something beyond “our cultures” understanding of reality.

Richard Bach, in the book Running From Safety, said: “ How hard it is to understand each other if we don’t already agree.”

We don’t have to agree who’s past is more traumatized. I don’t need anyone to tell me that the past generations of all races have oppressed and been oppressed. But can we choose to take this work, a common language, and make it what we agree upon?

When I came into this I thought it was going to be a “world of Humanity” choosing to communicate as such.

I think our work to accomplish this task is simple, but not easy, for whatever reasons I choose to make it hard. I believe we are making things very hard.

I tell you the truth of what I think and feel no matter what. Through clean interaction and the owning of my shadows, and you do the same. Period.

What I still see unfolding is, people still needing little boxes inside of this “Family of humanity”. It does not matter what my culture is for you to understand the expression of my truth! If we all use the same common language, you don’t have to understand my history for you to assist me in doing my work upon this planet and stand with me in truth.

As Michael Franti says, “What language do you laugh in? What language do you cry in…? What language do you dance in? Do you romance in? What language are your fears...? What language are your tears?

When are we as a world going to see this from a post-historic perspective? Why do we choose to fight for the past and present wounds of separation?

When we could all choose to be one “Family of The Earth”. To truly step into the role of God’s most powerful Angels, the Angels of free will. And, for us, to direct our attention upon a path of creation, love and healing, through purposeful and truthful communication. To work on the fears or our own cultures that keep separating us with the languages of earth that we as beings have created.

In this world of rising Chaos and Light, I ask;

If not now, … When?

If not us… then who?

I know my children would appreciate it… And don’t they deserve our Best?