Movin On Up

I have the theme song from The Jeffersons playing in my head and I found myself singing "Well we're movin on up, to the Eastside, to a deluxe apartment in the sky...we finally got a piece of the sky..." This song sounds like gospel music, full of celebration and joy. Do your remember this song and are you singing it with me here? The petite and yet larger than life show character, George Jefferson, was the star of this situation comedy. His version of movin on up was materialistic and he earned his piece of sky high pie heaven as a self employed entrepreneur, owning and running a successful dry cleaning business. The Jeffersons, All in the Family and shows of this elk busted doors wide open, giving the television audience glimpses into the ignorance that can live and be breathed out verbally by the main characters and softened by their loving peaceful wife's or character counter parts. Spewing hate and separatist mocking of people that are different from them was their modus operandi, with George evening the score between blacks and whites and Archie Bunker persisting in prejudice despite the objections his family made to his racist remarks. I loved these shows, because these actors dared to mock publicly in comedic and yet quite the political fashion, how ridiculous a person sounds when they make fun of people who aren't like them; make overarching stereotypical statements or speak fear from feeling threatened by "those people." I feel worn down, I really do, because nothing has changed. 

From The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" The beseeching of the Shylock character is worthy of attention and great care and it speaks to cruelty of spirit, the cruelty that is rationalized and excused away when you, human over there, the one that doesn't look or act like you are supposed to, is different from me. The soliloquy is a must read and was shortened here but please note, the last word, revenge. Revenge is a force, a powerful feeling of being impelled to justice, even a score, make you feel as badly as you have made me feel. Do you understand, please please tell me you get this? It is reciprocal, what you do and say can be done and said to you or worse yet, to your innocent and unprotected children. This is about justice or more specifically, injustice. I remember reading a challenge, to say this when affronted with a prejudiced joke "I don't listen to/laugh at prejudice jokes." I will tell you what I don't do, I don't tolerate hearing other humans being called those people, I won't listen to the maligning of whole nations, people from other countries outside of my pristine and lily white Canada (I say this tongue in cheek because Canada is a true melting pot made up of immigrants). I will tell you what I am doing, I am writing this, the piece before you and I am asking you to take a stand of INTOLERANCE for the hate mongering that can come sometimes and unfortunately, directly from the mouths of family and close friends. Remind them that we are beggars in this world, owning nothing, having created not one piece of land, nor one drop of water, sniff of air. None of it is ours to claim, all of it is ours to share. Say something, do SOMETHING, be brave and stop the bullying and fear mongering. Hate is ancient, revenge is animalistic and beneath an expanded spirit, an elevated soul. God is the Great Leveler. One Life, One Love, always ours to choose.