I do get excited (read “pissed-off”) about some of the topics and the replies that some post to them. Here on my blog, I can rant and rave all I like, although with the thought that it takes to write a good blog, I hope the posts will be more calm and reasonable.

I do have a need to be heard, to express my opinions and hope that some people see things as I do. This blog is a better venue for that. I have wanted to express more of my ideas here, and using the polls as topic starters should increase my enthusiasm for posting here.

So, be prepared for an onslaught of semi-liberal, pacifistic, idealistic, yet oh, so reasonable wisdom from the mind of a hermit.

I just had to hide the feeds from one of my friends on Facebook because they included racist videos. This person commented that he was laughing very hard at these videos. I had to hide them, and it took a lot of control not to comment about them and rant how this kind of crap is what keeps this country and the world from moving forward.

I was also talking to a friend on the phone recently. He also made a few racist comments. I just try to ignore them, but it’s very difficult.

What makes it really hard is that these are people from the neighborhood where I grew up. I have over 270 friends on Facebook, and I’ve only seen this kind of thing from those people who come from my home area.

This is hard to say. I’ve never felt I was a part of the neighborhood where I grew up because of things like this. I saw it in my family, in my friends, and from almost everyone in the area. Yet, I never accepted it. Racism is wrong!

Calling people derogatory names and prejudging individuals based on their race, color, faith, nationality, and any other stereotype is wrong. There is no defending it.

I understand we are all prejudiced. It is a basic instinct for survival. We fear and/or are suspicious of that which is different. I feel it myself. However, to bring those inner feelings and fears out, and ridicule (not just ridicule, but insult to the highest degree) individuals or groups based on those unfounded emotions is discrimination. And discrimination is never correct behavior for a thinking, intelligent being.

We are all human. We all do it. I suppose I am discriminating against bigots by blocking their posts on my pages. I hope I really do understand that it is the behavior of individuals and not of a group. There are other people from my home neighborhood who do not discriminate. It’s just a shame that I’ve seen so much of it from Fairmounters.

And for anyone thinking about defending this type of behavior… ARE YOU SERIOUS? You really think this is something you can defend? It’s bad enough that someone displays this type of behavior. What are we if we begin defending it?

COME ON!!! We have to move forward. Race, religion, nationality… it’s all nothing! Get over it and let’s start fixing the real problems in the world like starvation, disease, and war.