What We See We Can't See.

"The privilege of bitching because these issues don't affect you."

numerous American citizens think, feel, believe and act out!

Studying these images and pondering the stories and the history behind each I suddenly remembered an observation President Roosevelt once made. I had to get up and go through my library here in my office to find it. Here it is:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat."

Looking at the words is not pondering the words, nor is it applying the insight to the thinking of our past into resolution for how yesterday's evils live today needing to be solved. At the core of social problems about race Euro-Americans stand petrified by their fears. Unable to overcome them, address them, admit them has and will continue to stagnate any process. There is no progress in the racial issues because of white people's fears and guilt clinging to them making them feel the way they do. Donald Trump put a mirror up to white America and still white Americans pretend what is in the mirror isn't there. If, and they do, white folk think other peoples should get over 'it', and they play a governing role in resolving the issues around race, like murder; we who are deeply involved in the spiritual work of our people know the fears of white people are so deep they can only pretend to know what to do and pretend that race doesn't matter. In short, whites have no place leading discussions or the spiritual work of resolving race issues. Their job is to listen and unlearn.

Is that hopeless? Is my insight a diatribe? Am I wrong? If everything depends upon how we love then this is a question of love only from the perspective of the ceremonial leaders and the true Peace Keepers. Measuring sins and evil is hard with comeuppance on the table. But, fear and guilt are not guides towards peace. Reconciliation is impossible because there is no such thing! Why? Because there was no union broken between the whites and the rest of the world's people to be reconciled! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories Jan. 14, 2017