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Middle-Aged White Woman (Free verse) by Dovina

Maybe it’s time. You look at me and see a symbol of conservative acts that hurt you. My kind abused your kind. Now with your freedom, your authority, your power, it’s time for retribution. Go ahead, ignore me, don’t hire me belittle me in your verse skip over me at your readings. My ancestors did it to your ancestors. You have the right. It’s a new experience for me, that’s all. Maybe it’s time.

Goad 22-Apr-05/4:50 PM
Our brains have evolved to have unconscious biases. In many ways these unconscious biases are incredibly advantageous, if not necessarily to us as individuals, to the propagation of our genes.

At least, that was true in the past. In our current society, the biases and instincts we naturally tend to have/develop are often at odds with the ideals and values of society.

What counts is not whether you have such incorrect biases and instincts. Virtually everybody does. What counts are the conscious choices you make about whether or not to align yourself with the values & ideals society is moving towards.

And it is moving. Black people don't have equality in America, but they've more equality than they had a generation ago, and it's likely they'll have more equality in another generation than they do now. Perhaps even as much equality as they have in Canada and other more enlightened nations.

Similarly, women do not yet have equality in America, but they have rather significantly more equality than they had a generation ago, and will likely have even more equality a generation from now. Perhaps by then America will have even had a female national leader, as several more enlightened nations have already.

Health care is another excellent example. In the past, health care was grossly unequal but now most enlightened nations have some sort of system that provides access to health care to virtually all of their citizens. Even America has a rudimentary form of such a system that's available to most of it's citizens.




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