Looking Forward

We saw that the death of George Floyd caused a unanimous outcry from all Americans. 

The marches have called attention to the frustrations with the lack of progress over the last several decades to bring education and opportunity to the suppressed African American communities in so many of our cities.

I'm proud that Portland for one night brought a peaceful interactive protest to Portland's living room (Pioneer Square) and the Burnside bridge 9-minute "Lay Downs".  It was so sad to see 100 thugs and Atifa instigators ruin last night's (June 2nd) peaceful march.  

We can take our community back from these criminals who prey on the situations where people are suffering.  We can help our Black community start businesses and help in making sure our inner city black youth get the best education possible. It will be our "actions" rather than just "words" that will make it happen.

To bring Americans back together we have to put aside political differences.  After all, our lives have been consumed with politics for the past 3+ years and that doesn't allow us to have the normal balance anyone should want to have in our lives. I look at each person I know and I see so many wonderful attributes and differences that have nothing to do with politics. Let us take a step back and take a breath -- remember who we were prior to our last election.  Use your gifts now to restore order so we can make some progress in putting America on track in all aspects of our lives.

The looting and wrecking of businesses made me sick to my stomach.  I remember when our children were young and took something that didn't belong to them, they had to return it to the store and face the music. That only had to be done once.  I wonder what the parents today will do when their children come home after the riots with merchandise they had no right to take.  Will they be made to return it?  I can only wish.  The looters were from other places according to the arrest reports so the business owners who were hurt the most probably will not see this happen.

I wish more of our politicians had been business owners prior to being elected so they could be better prepared for pandemics and rioting and the affect on the business community.  I'm going to take that into consideration before I vote this November--looking more closely at the background of the people running for office.

I'll get off my soapbox now.  It’s very hard to be creative knowing all this negativity and hatred is raging throughout our country.  I’m not going to paint it for posterity because no one should have to go through all this ever again.

I'm also praying that the virus will not spring up with so many people exposed during the marches.  I guess we'll have to wait for a couple weeks to see if it is going to resurface.