Freedom vs Hatred?

Many memories of racial unrest, freedom and hatred, living side by side, flashed through my mind while working with my daughter on an assignment for college that she's doing on Ancestry and our experiences of racism.  It shocked me how many of us didn't question the separate restrooms, water fountains, movie theatre seats, bus seats, etc., when I was growing up.  Here in the south, it was just the way things had always been.

Until.

The words "integration" and "segregation" became part of our daily conversations in the early 60's and so did the name "Martin Luther King".  I was a young wife and mother in those early years and began to see how differently the world was going to be for my girls as they grew up.  I was glad things were changing.  I wanted to be out there, fighting the good fight also.  But as I took care of my girls and taught them differently than I was taught, I saw that I was doing "my thing" for the cause of equality for all.

Then came Betty Freidan and and Gloria Steinem and The Feminine Mystique and Ms. Magazine.  Again, teach your children well, as the song, by Graham Nash, goes.

Flash forward, it's the early 2000's, and hatred takes another ghastly toll.  We all remember where we were and what we were doing.  We also remember what we weren't doing.  We weren't watching closely enough.  We had allowed hatred to take root again.  This time from across the seas making it's way to our "peaceful?" shores.

Does hatred attract hatred?  I think so.

Also, peace must attract peace.  Right?

Teach Your Children
by Graham Nash

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.

Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.

Counter Melody To Above Verse:
Can you hear and do you care and
Cant you see we must be free to
Teach your children what you believe in.
Make a world that we can live in.

Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.