Words Can Hurt

If you haven't read the story before this one, then this won't make any sense.

For the last nine hours I've done nothing but dwell on what was said to me earlier today. I'm sitting here with my stomach in a knot and my chest in a vice. I'm even having trouble breathing. I know I'm letting this get to me, but it just doesn't make any sense, and it hurts. I don't recall feeling this bad in a very long time.

I am a liberal, a progressive, and an idealist. Equality is the basis for my reasoning. I spend evey second of every day trying to make the world a better place for everyone. And the mere implication that I could be a racist makes me start to wonder why I do these things. I feel as if Children's Hospital is mad that I could only give so much bone marrow or only one kidney.

Its this kind of treatment that makes me wonder why I should suffer so much if the people that I suffer for are just going to step on me. I'm despied in the majority of the circles of middle-class white America. I can't even spend time with my own people. And forget being able to get a job in that sector. I could have been a lawyer, or maybe a cop like my parents, but now I've got a file at both the local police department and local FBI office (despite having never committed a crime) all because I chose to speak out against the government and the system (thank you Freedom of Information Act).

I spit on everything that the people around me hold dear because the system we live in is descriminatory and I know that it's only blind luck that I get offered opportunities like law school or even to be born white, male, and middle class. So, I choose to fight. I fight for the rights of minorities, women, gays, non-Christians and everyone else that is descriminated against in this country. And what do I get in return? Kicked out of the white circles and descriminated against in all the others.

I know I'm taking this too seriously. I know that there was probably some confusion or misunderstanding involved , and I'm sure that most people regardless of race or background, would be confused at the very least, especially people that know me, but the mere implication that there could be any doubt about the kind of person that I am is disheartening. It's as if a hole has been burned into my soul.

Sigh...I'm going to have to meditate on this for awhile. I'm sure that in the end I won't end up changing my mind about the world or the path I've chosen for myself, and that I'll always be the overbearing liberal progressive fighter I've always been, but I have learned something: sometimes, no matter what good a person does in their life, they can never gain respect with some people. They can only lose it.