Why celebrate MLK day?

Every MLK day I take a long hard look around my neighborhood and wonder why we bother to honor a man who's message is all but ignored by the black community.  I'm reminded of how black people fought for equality and once the laws were on the books, stopped.

Stopped?  You think that's crazy? You think the fight for equality rages on? You cry white privilege and Ferguson and say you're still oppressed.  I say if you're oppressed it's your own damn fault.

You won the right to vote and didn't use it.  You won the right to a fair education and didn't use it. You made  it illegal to discriminate based on race in every aspect of society, workplace, shopping malls, restrooms, you name it and then left it at that.  Black teens voluntarily sit in the back of the bus these days.  Every club you join is almost always exclusively black.  You still have separate churches, radio stations, BET.  Why? Integration works both ways.  How are you ever going to be equal to white people if you don't go near them?

But for every African-American who steps up and makes something of themselves or who makes the effort to take their rightful place in the world, there's 20 more who CHOOSE not to.

That's right.  CHOOSE not to.  Because being poor and black doesn't make you drop out of school if you REALLY want to go.  Poverty and being black doesn't force you to join street gangs or use drugs. It doesn't get you pregnant at 15.  It doesn't mean you have to settle for welfare.  And white people aren't forcing you to either.  You either want to do good or you don't, but only you make that decision.

If you don't like being targeted by the police then go BE police officers and CHANGE it.  If you don't feel represented by your government, go VOTE for people who will represent you.  Better yet, go BE a politician and CHANGE things.  You had every opportunity to keep moving towards equality, but YOU CHOSE NOT TO.  It's like once the 1980s came, you just sat there and blamed white people instead of effecting ANY change at all.  WHY???

Every time you skip school or commit crimes instead of trying to get an education and a career, you're bitch slappng Dr. King.   Every time you sag your pants instead of dressing respectfully, you're bitch slapping Dr. King.  Every rap song, every grill, every use of ebonics, every last wanna be thug is an insult to every one of your ancestors who fought to win you freedom and equal rights.

It's time to stop playing the blame game, get off your lazy asses and GO BE EQUAL.  Because you can do that now thanks to Dr. King and a lot of people just like him.  Will you?

By the way, white people marched during the Civil Rights Movement too and there were white people protesting in Ferguson.  Times HAVE changed when it comes to race. People ARE more tolerant. Yes, even white ones. Your attitudes may not have kept up, but that's your own damn fault too.

Stop oppressing yourselves.  Stop living in the past. Get up and be the change you want to see.  Go BE equal or stop whining about inequality.  Otherwise, you're missing the entire point of celebrating MLK Day.

Religion of peace?

I'm starting to get offended that Muslims keep insisting Islam is a religion of peace.  Really?  THAT'S the story you're sticking with?

I never see Jewish suicide bombers blowing up women and children in the market the way Hamas does. I never see armed Christian militants kidnapping little school girls and forcing them to marry their soldiers like Boko Haram does. I never see Buddists invading towns and killing anyone who refuses to convert to Buddhism or handing out pamphlets on the proper way to rape an infidel like ISIS does.  Atheists never hijacked planes and flew them into buildings like Al Qaeda did.  I bet Wiccans find Harry Potter very offensive but they never shot up the publisher's office or put a hit out on JK Rowling.  Je suis Harry?

There may be the occasional nut job, but no other religion on the entire planet has so many people willing to martyr themselves for their religion or has such an organized and continuous militant wing as Islam.  Where is all the violence coming from?  I don't know.  The Koran maybe?  Because it comes from somewhere.  I don't know what Muslims are refusing to admit to themselves, but I know what I see with my own two eyes and Islam is not a religion of peace.

Islam is oppression.  Mormons didn't shoot little Malala just for trying to go to school.  The Taliban did because Islam teaches that women are property and aren't entitled to know how to read.  Yes, Islam okays slavery.  The Catholic Pope doesn't have people executed for disagreeing with him but Islamic law says anyone who disagrees with the prophet can be executed for blasphemy.

And yes, Islam is a religion of war.  Jihad is just as much a part of Islam as Christmas is to Christianity and it is taught to millions of little Muslim children in millions of mosques all over the world.  How else can you explain why so many people born outside the middle east join terrorist groups IN the middle east?   They're recruited somewhere.  Church maybe?  Where did the idea of the martyr getting 72 virgins when they die come from?  From Saint Mohammad because Islam does say it's okay to make war on the infidel, i.e. non Muslims.  Look it up.

But you still say Islam is a religion of peace.  I say PROVE IT.

Why is it always left up to the west and people of other faiths to fight terrorists?  Why don't Arab nations take the lead?   Why aren't Arab nations sending troops into Iraq to fight ISIS or into Nigeria to fight Boko Haram?  Why isn't the Palestinian Authority doing anything to stop Hamas?  Obviously because they're OKAY with what these groups are doing.  By the way, the majority of people killed by Islamic extremists are actually Muslim.  They don't seem to care.

But you want me to believe Islam is peace so I want you to prove it, Muslims.  I want YOU to clean house.  Try stopping the terrorists instead of hiding them. Yeah, I'm talking to you, Pakistan.

Until Islam does more than just whine it's all the west's fault and starts actually doing something to stop terrorism, until Muslims stop empathizing with terrorists and wages its own little war on terror, I will not be convinced that you mean me no harm.  If you want me to believe you're nice guys, prove it and stop promoting terrorism.

Je Suis Charlie

A week ago, some jihadists got so offended at a French magazine's editorial cartoon criticizing Islam that they stormed the magazine's office and murdered 12 staffers.  Most people condemned it but way too many people are also defending it.  They say the cartoons were offensive and the jihadists had a right to be angry.  No one's come out and said the murders are justified, but you know they're thinking it.

And they're idiots.  Political correctness is bull shit.  You can't sneeze without offending someone.  But worse than that, it misses the entire point of freedom of speech.  Remember that pesky first amendment?  It doesn't just apply to you.  It applies to everyone.  Even cartoonists who make fun of you.

Freedom of speech is supposed to guarantee your right to say what you want even if someone else finds it offensive because to not be allowed to say it means you don't have the right to free speech.  Who decides what is free speech and what isn't?  No one can because what's acceptable to one isn't necessarily acceptable to others.  Who decides who gets free speech and who doesn't?  No one should.  Either everyone has it or free speech doesn't exist.

But people do every day.  Some basketball mogul says something racist and has his team legally taken away from it.  You don't have to agree with the comment but who the hell are you to take his business away for saying it?  He doesn't have the same right to free speech you do?

And it doesn't stop there. There's a whole host of people who are made to pay for saying something that isn't deemed politically correct and we're ok with it because we tell ourselves speech has consequences.  Yeah, you can say whatever you want, but you will be held accountable for it in the almighty court of public opinion.

So is that what happened to those murdered staffers of Charlie Hebdo?  They simply said something they shouldn't have and paid the price for it? If you killed everyone who offended you, there wouldn't be anyone left alive.

People are idiots.  They're going to do things and say things that you're going to disagree with, but if you value your own freedom of speech, you can't deny it to others because that sets a dangerous precedent.  One day it'll be your turn and it won't feel so good.

So ignore the idiots.  You don't have to agree with what they say, but you shouldn't try to stop them from saying it.  Feel free to criticize them for it.  Exercise your own right to free speech and say why you disagree with them.

But you can't kill them.  The men who murdered the staffers at Charlie Hebdo are dead now.  They took hostages and the French police killed them in a shootout.  Twitter is all a glow with the hashtag JeSuisCharlie as millions show their support for Charlie Hebdo, offensive cartoons and all.  Still other media outlets are now questioning their own policies towards what's offensive and what's not.  People are scared of being offensive so I guess the jihadists won in some way.  The fight for the right to free speech wages on.

Will we learn anything from this?  Somehow I doubt it.