Rev. Barber: "We need to get back to 'normal,'" REALLY?
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II“We need to get back to ‘normal,’” really? “We need to get back to when we all were just getting along”? Now when was that? When really now? When did that ever happen in America?
This is why we can’t heal: There are some things you just can’t compromise on.
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America has never been great for everyone. Just a select few. While many have striven to make it great, it has so very far to go to be considered even "good". 
The 1%, the ones who lie to themselves that they are prosperous and the ones who live in fear.
And the ones who live in fear have a lot of things to be scared of: poverty, the police, health care or lack thereof, being shot for being the wrong color, ect, ect. ect.
IMO, the last two can overlap.
I would not know how that feels. 
John Meacham once said that one if the ways to unit the country is if an individual cares about another's equity, that caring will reciprocate.
A co-worker didn't understand Voter Suppression that targets people of color. As if it's not real. Took the time to explain the practice and gave examples. Recommended reading the SCOTUS decision in Shelby vs Holder.
[link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder?wprov=sfla1|
Co-worker refused to read it.
How can I expect an individual to care about my Inequities when that individual refused to learned about why I or anyone else in my group have Inequities?
along. It was last of times (that lasted several centuries) known as "benign ignorance."
Everyone wanted to pretend that adults no longer smoked cannabis when everyone still did. You could go to parties, get togethers, etc., fire up some j's and sit back and actually talk to people from all color spectrums and races. What united everyone was being a tax paying adult and considered a criminal just because we smoked dope (even though no one was doing it [wink wink nudge nudge]). We all had the same to lose.
It was through those get togethers that people started saying "n word" instead of the actual word, or some of the latino slurs, etc. They were words that our grand/parents used and those who used those words were chided for saying them too, so the language changed. Those words were dropped from our vocabularies. At the same time, no one was screaming at us, saying it's all our fault and other thought processes from college/university campus'. Everyone used their inside voices and we learned. Change doesn't happen overnight but excrementally.
(People like Rev. Barber most likely didn't know of these times because they weren't the get togethers that he would be aware of.)
These were the post-crack and pre-meth days when you then had to start weeding (har har) people out for being meth heads. It was the days of no guns on the streets, the Clinton years when everyone could find a decent paying job and everyone brought their own weed. Only time there was drought was right before harvest time. We never got the real good stuff because that went to the larger cities and sold at much higher prices than locally.
Only well-seasoned pros drank and smoked, beer was definitely okay. Liquor cost so danged much, weed became the choice, and again everyone actually talked to each other. People who smoked were the best sharers - we won't give you dope but we'll sit down and smoke a doob with you.
Needless to say, these were the pre-internet, pre-helicopter parents, pre-everyone has a gun days, when people could actually interact with each other, especially at parties. Still makes my head spin as to why you would need to bring a gun to a BBQ.
Then 2001 happened and it all changed on a dime. People were told to "say something" and everyone really started being treated as a criminal but now we have the internet and people quit hanging out with strangers, per se.
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I'll share a story that goes with these times...it was a cold, drizzly March afternoon
My SO at the time and I were invited to a park for a BBQ type thing for something - someone's birthday, engagement, something or other, so we knew a few people but not many. It was "no smoking" affair because kids and religilous were there.
After shivering for a couple of hours, I invited people back to my duplex to get warmed up and relax [wink wink nudge nudge] and I invited one guy who seemed to be by himself, not really talking to anyone and I felt sorry for him. I figured he was new in town or something and I didn't want him to feel left out.
Got home, coats came off and the baggies came out. So we're all sitting back, talking and passing the doobs and this guy said he couldn't because of his job. So I asked him what he did and he said he worked for the Justice Dept.! So, we all looked at each other, doobs went out and we started babbling about being low level people not big time dealers, yada yada. Finally, he asked if we would like him to leave. We just looked at him and said yes, so sorry, but you are making us extremely nervous. But thanks for coming 
After he left, everyone just lit into me - lol! I said, hey!, he looked lonely. How was I to know? I became a bit more judicious (har har) as to who I invited over after that.
So, yes, those time existed, and everyone was in the same boat. We all lived in the same neighborhoods and no one was better off than anyone else. THAT is the time that I miss. People talking to people.
