I've known her for a long time now; we've clashed on the issues of the day over the years but I consider her a good friend and vice versa.
As I've often said to her: as long as I've got breath in my body and a functioning mind, I will speak on the issues of the day. You can disagree with me about them the live-long day but I will speak my mind.
Ain't that right,
@Black Angel?
I like this Black Angel poster.
Thank you both very much for the kind words, I truly appreciate them and you guys are pretty cool too.
And Webster, you are one of very few people who has known me long enough from my pseudo-conservative days.. I am not sure if you picked that up over the time we've known each other and you've read my posts..
But yeah.. I was once a conservative as well.. I mean I wasn't a Confederate flag waving, tiki-torch burning, KKK-sympathizing, child-touching conservative, but outside of that I had a lot of the same stuff to say about a lot of the same issues back then.. (like a few years prior to you having joined back in 2013..) much of that cringy stuff was largely on my old Proboards forum, back when I used to be equally as cringy as I was also a cheerleader for that service back then.. (so even back then, as I cut my teeth as an admin on other services for my brother's forum, I eventually learned better and did better as a result.)
But I used to say a lot of the same stuff those that were brought up in the church and ONLY trusted the church (as instructed) had to say mostly because it was all I knew then and it was all I was told that I should trust and to never question anything.. and because I was scared of anything else (like I was told I should be, instead of being comforted as a kid) and I wanted "God's People" to like me and be seen as a "Good girl" I followed right along with that, until I got older and was old enough to see things for myself and I started asking questions.. and it just seemed natural for me as an older kid then.. and that was when things quickly changed for me.
Instead of reassurances, I got threats and abuse for asking questions, (even, and especially in school) and the more abuse I got, the more questions I had. So that was a fucked up loop especially since a lot of the abuse I saw and dealt with, commited by hypocritical "Holy" or "Saved" adults and always justified it with the Bible. And whenever my curiousity prompted me to ask more questions like (where is it in the Bible that it is ok for A to do this to B, especially on the subject of marital rape, etc) I got MORE abuse, and I saw others suffer the same fate because they had questions too. Lots of childhood friends of mine in the South disappeared and it was always preceded by a fallout between our parents. In hindsight, I was only down South for a few years before we moved back to NY.
Dealing with that abuse led me being put into therapy and that was when I learned that NONE of that was ok and it was up here that I was encouraged to lean in and learn more about the things I was curious about for myself and not to trust others as much.. as they may have ulterior motives. And by the time I got to high school, and was older, I started to learn what ended up happening to the "Good Girls" who blindly and faithfully "did as they were told" and it fucking disgusted me. I touched briefly on this when I mentioned the PTA meetings in which I saw a friend in my class with who I thought was her father, and later learned that he was her husband. And it was after I saw the same angry reaction from the man after he yanked my friend away, did it really click for me what happened to my friends in the South.
But still, I somehow thought it was my fault, when it wasnt.. but yet I still had my conservative roots that I was determined to hold on to despite what I was learning for myself. And the ironic thing is, with what I learned, came from within, I started observing more as I kept learning more and yet it always confused me because I was taught that "God's People" don't hurt anyone, but yet here I was seeing "God's People" hurt everyone. And of course when I did ask some of my evangelical family members, they always said that other religions did that because they were evil and that they we're truly "God's People" and because it came from an elder who never hurt me, I believed it and was content with that explanation.
That is, until I became a junior and we started learning about Slavery and the Civil War.. I am exceedingly grateful that I learned the truth about it instead of what my cousins were taught down South.. but it was here once again that my curiousity got worse and I learned as much as I could about American history and the role Christianity played in Slavery and between those years and college was when everything became crystal clear for me.. and I learned the role Christianity played in all of that which led me to not want anything to do with it anymore.. especially as I learned that the people that did these things used the Bible and Christianity as a justification for it all.
Even in the case of this nations forefathers and what they did to my ancestors (I would learn when doing my own genealogy years later, that some are my direct ancestors for this reason and my others were in single digits when this occured, which is why my Irish heritage will be the only European heritage I acknowledge) when they got here, and how my enslaved ancestors did the same things they did to their their children in the hopes of protecting them. Such as corporal punishment.. I used to be a big supporter of that back in my conservative days until I learned that it came from Slavery, and that while my ancestors did spank their children and passed that down along with Christianity, they at least stopped there. I later learned in college that that was often the act that took place to wear down their defenses before the rape.. and once I learned that, and the fact that there was a "Slave Bible" that Black pastors had to read from, or they'd be lynched (as happened to one of my ancestors I would later learn) I was done.
Yet, I still had some hope that perhaps I was wrong about writing off Christianity, because some things about it were a small comfort, like seeing your loved ones again in Heaven after they died, etc. that is until my GGM died and I saw all the Christian charities and organizations she donated to for decades after she fled from racial hate (read: KKK burning down her home) in NC during the Great Migration, turn against her pretty much immediately after she died. I mean before she passed she would have me read the letters they sent to her when she was donating to them and they were cordial but after she died the letters kepts coming first less cordial and basically worse after that. When I got tired of the letters I called them stating that the reason she wasn't donating anymore was because she had passed away, and at first they said that she was a long time donor and asked me if I'd like to continue donating "to honor her" and when I told them that I couldn't afford to do so as I was her caretaker, and had no money, they asked me to send them their "blessed dime" back and ended the call by slamming the phone down.
No condolences, just, BAM! *dial tone*
The final straw was how the church my Grandfather turned against him almost immediately after my Grandmother died, when they pretty much dedicated their lives to the church and helped 100s of families there after they left NY, and it was disgusting because this was coming from the familes and people he helped.. even up until my Grandmother died. It was shocking it was like as soon as they realized that he wouldn't be able to help them anymore they turned against him and this was the case until he later died.
Anyway, I say all this to say that I usually understand and deeply sympathize more than not with Conservatives who truly believe in the church and everything that they are told to believe, because I've and even though I no longer believe in it myself, I firmly understand the need to believe in something. And what has always helped me was being observant enough to notice the difference in the way I was treated in both places whenever my mind was insatiably curious. Down South, I got abuse, but up here I got encouragement to keep going. I did still keep losing friends though. One of my first best friends up here was a Jewish girl I befriended in school because we were the only 2 girls in our classes and we both wore glasses (and were bullied for it) and we quickly best friends.. we were also bullied but back then I was a tomboy so I always fought back and whenever the teachers "claimed" not to see anything she always said that she saw it all.
She had my back, and I always had hers. Anyway, one day she invited me to her house for dinner one and my Mom dropped me off. Everything was fine until, at the dinner table, her parents asked me what my parents did for a living and when I said that my Mom worked in marketing and was attending college to get her degree, they immediately asked me about my father and when I said that he was in the military and after we moved from down south it was just my GGM and Mom that took care of me and my brother, they said that it was late and sent me home in a cab and after that, I never saw my best friend again. I barely got a chance to finish my dinner. It was literally like the flip of a light switch. And it confused me, until years later when I read about how Jewish leaders intentionally editted out Secretary Hillary Clinton in that famous photo in their local publications (others editted out her and Fmr. President Obama, leaving only the White men) where she was sitting in the room with the other leaders watching the footage from the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. And THAT was when it clicked. It wasn't that I was Black, or born in Germany (even though they acknowledged that it was fucked up that I was called both N words as a kid) it was because my Mom had a career and was getting her education and raising her kids as a single Mom that offended them.
So losing friends was the only thing that remained the same up here.. at least, where she was concerned..
But up here I wasn't called a "hellbound demon child" I was told that I was incredibly intelligent and I was always encouraged to learn more about the things I was curious about and even my GGM, as much as she donated to Christian charities and organizations before she died, she was always spiritual.. and she taught me as well. But even though she believed in God, she was never like the people I dealt with in school or church down South. And I wouldn't learn until I was an adult that there is a big difference between being spiritual and being religious.
Most of the things that brought me comfort came from within, whether it was me learning more whenever my mind got hungry (which it always is even now in my early 40s) or from nature itself. Whether it is me getting outside and getting sunlight and recharging my Melanin, listening to music when I was feeling down, or nature sounds when stressed, doing something creative whenever I feel angry or depressed or even posting on forums such my own or this one.. (sometimes even with the usage of my vape or edibles lol) these were all things that brought me more comfort than anything I learned in Christianity or read in the Bible. And looking back, I realized that although I started my forum before my GGM died, I never really became active on it until after she died, because although she was my GGM, losing her gutted me, and even though it hurts since it'll be 23 years this Fall she has been gone, I still remember everything she taught meI learned to always do what felt right to me and I was always motivated by doing the right thing, no matter how difficult it is for me.. and the one thing that never felt right was blindly accepting the things I was told by others and blindly hating someone for what they believed in.
And that is pretty much all I have done in my life thus far.. and that is pretty much what I do in my posts wherever I am.. I can sympathize with others who came up like I did in the church and respect and acknowledge that they have their own beliefs for their own personal reasons, I just draw the line at perpetuating said abuse and furthering the goals of the people who are intent on treating an entire nations full of people and thousands of belief systems like a domestic abuser would his own household.
So if I come across extremely passionate on these topics, please know it is because of my intimate knowledge concerning them.. and as someone who was fed the same bullshit for much of her life and abused by those who believed the same is precisely why I have always been determined to lean in on facts alone rather than bullshit, especially where this is concerned. There are way too many people dealing in bullshit as it is, and I at least know that if I piss someone off enough by stating facts to challenge their beliefs (not that I set out to do this, it just happens because these people just HAVE TO BE RIGHT FACTS BE DAMNED) then I know that these people will just be itching to find something to call me out on (to put me in my place) and that is when they are forced to learn for themselves like I did.
And consequently I have lost friends over that too, which even Webster has witnessed himself, and that tells me that they never really were friends all that much to begin with, and that, is the primary reason why I consider Webster a true friend as well, even though we have never met each other in person.. lol
Anyway, I apologize for the long post, but I just wanted to respond to Webster's kind words with the care and respect it truly deserved. My GGM always said that "you can get more flies with honey, than you can with vinegar" and while that always confused me as a kid, I later learned it meant that a little kindness goes a very long way, and unlike hate and ignorance, its never killed anyone.
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