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As a proud member of the Human Race, a Caucasian American, who is a 3rd generation American, born and raised in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country (Lebanon, PA!), to a Jewish family, I have been on both sides of racism. I know how terrible a thing it is for a child growing up in such a wonderful country, but a cruel country, just the same. As a pre-teen, I uttered my first and last racist remark, calling a person an epithet based upon his last name, and his color. Last name was "Brown," but I chose to all him "Black," thinking how funny I was being. Until he hit me square in the gut, and - as my dear father would have said - 'knocked some sense into me!" My best friend, for many years, was a young African American man, as our mothers were extremely close friends, and we stayed at each other’s homes, ate together, played together, and became as close as our mothers. As Crosby, Stills and Nash said, "Teach Your Children Well!" Now, so many years later, the opportunity for people like McCain and Palin to foster Racism, to foment Riot, is still there. The opportunity to be on the wrong end of racism, to be called names, to be treated like a second/third class citizen at an early age, because I am not the same as the others of my age group, was equally educating. Why? Being a Jewish American child, being called names based upon being Jewish - Kike, Jew, Yid, and worse - is indeed very difficult to learn to live with and through. But the learning is extremely important as it brought me to a place in life that was and still is extremely important. There is no other more important than equality. If it means to be treated badly, to learn a lesson, then so be it! I used to joke that Lebanon, PA, didn't have enough Black people that they used Jews as their targets, just to keep their hands in. When I was a teenager, the Jewish Center brought in a PA State Police teacher and a Marine instructor, to teach us kids how to defend ourselves from Racists and narrow-minded bullies. The lesson learned, I could not utter a racist remark if I tried, without opening up an internal wound so equally painful inside myself. Yet there she is, in 2008, the Queen of Dismemberment, as in "Give me a left foreleg from a wolf, and I'll give you a $150.00 reward ..." This woman, running along side McCain, is as brutal and as big a bully as any over-sized bully you might meet in the back alleys of any large city in which people are treated poorly, because of the color of their skin, the sound of their accent, or any other qualifier. To then know that a person - and I use the term loosely - such as Sara Palin, allows this kind of language to be bandied about at her rallies, and encourages its use, demonstrates that she is not just not qualified to be a Vice President of our country; she is not qualified to be a dog-catcher, either. She encourages this and for that she should be prosecuted, for inciting to riot. The Secret Service should investigate those who use that language at her rallies, and investigate her, as well, for encouraging its use.Shame on her and further shame on McCain, who once was a hero, but has become nothing more than a signatory to a pact with the worst kind of Americans, to get their votes for president. In these final days of the longest Presidential Election on our modern history, we - all American Citizens - should work together to ensure that racism is sent packing to the last century. That bullying other people, especially based upon their race, religion, color, and state of mind ... should also be sent to another place in our history. We should spend these last days before the election being certain that the most incredible methods of working together to ensure that all votes are made with equality and freedom, based upon a person's own choices, not based upon their fears of reprisal for not voting the way the local bullies want, is enforced. To know that American Citizens can work together to elect a new President, one who cherishes every type of American Citizen, and who can lead us al forward into the Future - with a Capital "F" for Future - will put the best possible spin on this election. So, let us all work together to put this Nation back on its feet, and moving forward because as the saying goes, "Vote, as if your future depends upon it. Because it does!"
