Sunday, May 31, 2009
What Side Do We Choose To See Things From?
Spiritual Ministries Mind Spirit Body Vibrational Medicine Research, Healing and Education Center.
Life Is About ChoicesRev. Tonie C. Wallace Dream-Founder and Director
Jada Stone-Associate Editor, Contributing Writer
Dear All One Family:
Wow the weekend has almost flown by again! It is amazing to me how time just flies!
So much to do and so little time it seems to do it all..yet, I know that I must, no matter how much collateral damage others might believe it is creating...
Today I found this little piece on the Yahoo News Service...
I feel it is an excellent news reporting and states the opinions of one Republican Senator so well!
Please do take the time to read it...for I truthfully believe and feel within my heart that what this judge stated a few years ago, is actually true and concise...for she didn't state an untruth...please take that from this 1/4 Latino, and 1/4 Chinese, and 1/2 mixture of my dad: Irish, Scottish, German, English, French Canadian, (dad's mother, almost 100% Danish) person.
So what nationality rating did our government give me? Hispanic, being my mother was from Panama...
Trust me, where I was raised in Western Michigan on two 200 acre dairy farms, and attended schools that were primarily Holland descendants...thus fair skinned, blond haired...blue or green eyed persons.
The only dark ed skinned families back then were the immigrant workers, that didn't have children with them, for none went to my school. We did have one Italian family yet the father owned the town bar and thus I feel that my best friend was allowed to associate with the other town kids easily, was simply because her father and mother were making big money then...for it was primarily a farming community and the high debt that all farmers were a having to keep their farms upgraded and functioning, perhaps lead lots of them then, to seek out the darkness of the local bar...
My kid sister yesterday reminded me of my high school graduation and how I had gave a speech after getting my diploma...for the life of me, I couldn't remember doing such...of which her husband, my brother in law, stated, oh oh, Alzheimer's...of which I stated, too many bangs in the head from car accidents and just too much plain ole stress of others and my own!
Some call it plain ole life and I call it...life is good.
I also told her that at that time of our lives, both our parents drank alcohol heavily and most of the time were not present in our lives...really.
I also told her that I doubt it very much that our dad or mom at that time, even understood why the school would select such a student who hadn't attended that long at that school...and wasn't the seniors class president or highest grade point carrier...so I probably wasn't even given a compliment for my high achievement efforts...speech.
Perhaps that is why it didn't register like it showed have...then again, perhaps it was the fact that I stuttered, and was so God awful shy, that I was only glad to put the speech behind me and move on...I don't know why I chose to forget that moment in time...for my sis said she remembered it because mom and dad were a taking lots of pictures of me...yet back then, parents of post depression parents, left lots to the imagination....love, praise and respect was something never spoken...only assumed to be known by the children, because that was how they were raised.
Anyway!
Shortly after being reminded that I had indeed spoke at my high school graduation where my oldest brother as I had wrote a while back, both graduated...on that same day...I remembered my speech contents and it went something like this...
I was asked to speak to all present here today to tell you why I was selected to talk today to all of my classmates.
When my parents moved our family here in the middle of my Junior year of school...perhaps the thoughts of the Principal and board were a bit hesitant...for they didn't know if they should be placing my brothers and myself in special classes because we were being transferred from a Class C school and were now placed in a Class B school and usually the odds are good...or were in the past...that students coming from a lower academic school, couldn't catch up to a higher level of education...
I was able to blow the doors off with that statistical stat...simply because I had one teacher that told me that I could fly if I wanted to and that what happened to me yesterday...no longer needed to be kept silent as she told me to write about all those times that others tried to keep me an immigrant and told me that I had to ride in the back and just be silent...and all things will pass without my comments/feelings being needed...
A child that was only allowed to play with the other kids her age, that were as poor as her family, or poorer...a child labeled near mentally retarded...that somehow magically became a butterfly from the moment she entered a school filled with students that weren't a judging her and a telling her that she wasn't enough because of her skin coloration and parents financial status in the community...
I believe with all of my heart that one teacher, Mrs. Carr, my English and Creative Writing Class teacher...recognized in me the tortured inner child just a itching to gather all of her words and reach out to the world, asking her country what it is that she can do for them, instead of what her country could do for her.
I graduated 33 out of my graduating class of students...and I hit the B honor roll each semester after attending...not bad for a failing student at my old high school...that only one person told me good by...my Italian girlfriend, Pat M.
My whole growing up years...only one friend...not bad, perhaps those that didn't have one friend to cry and tell them good by, would say I was lucky...
This English teacher, Mrs. Carr, also pushed me towards Debate Class, and we had a regular competition that Mrs. Carr thought I should enter with a speech I had prepared on LSD... late 1960's...although it was purely analytical...because I had not road tested it personally...it won me the local competition and then this shy little girl...had to deliver her winning speech to the regional competition...where I had to stand up and speak to strangers...as if my fellow high school classmates were not enough...
My pushing motivation factor was my high school English teacher, Mrs. Carr...she believed in me and blew me her energy when she felt I wanted to lie down from the embarrassment...thus keeping my wings a flapping as I pushed for my next waiting star.
Thank you Mrs. Carr, where ever you are! For I was 26 years when I first heard the words from both my parents that they loved me and were proud of me...Something that would never had happened, had I not asked my parents if they loved me or not, or were they proud of me...for I heard either words from them...
Another example when I went to college arose...proving that I wasn't the near mental retarded child that this Northern Michigan long ago farming community of Holland dwellers, high school counselor, labeled me as: I was inducted into my local college Phi Theta Kappa Society...I was also elected by my student body at the school to become their Parliamentarian for that year...not bad.
So I can relate to Sonia Sotomayor story of struggle and reaching for the top...I am personally proud of her...first because she is a woman and second a Hispanic one at that for all know that the Hispanic race is not all that welcomed here...and to raise to that level of power and accomplishment, just because it was her next star to reach towards...gives me continued hope that racism will one day be exactly that...an old term that means absolutely nothing...for it doesn't live any longer in the land.
All those that know how experience is our best teacher...know that what she spoke of in the past is real...and all know that men and women do not think alike or act alike...it would be nice, yet I know if any position in the land needs someone with experience, plus a good handle on the issues...this job of Supreme court Judge is the job...thank you President Obama for caring enough to give us this country's very best!
It matters not to me what others might want to drag up about her...we live in a time where word play is always a going on...and anything to take us all off of the subject point of where our real issues lie, will be done...can you imagine the Republican Party saying, they want no one that is a futuristic thinker, that can think outside of the box, or can dream of better ways to handle things?
I ask you, could this be one of the biggest reasons we are in so much dilemma's in our government?
The Republicans in office kept it that limited and so unresponsive?
We are all living in challenging times in our land...and I don't know why so much clatter is a having to go on...I just guess it is what it is...and until it no longer is...it will just be what it is...since when does thinking outside of the box, fail the land?
Just a throwing it all out there...take what you need and do please leave the rest...
Just remember one other thing...in my Junior year of high school, I begged my guidance counselor to let me take two classes...one was Spanish and the other, wood working.
I was told that I was a failing English and would not be able to handled Spanish even though I argued that my mother spoke it fluently...I was still denied the right...too stupid of a girl. The next class I was told that I couldn't have because I was a girl and girls don't play with wood...I can't wait for Sonia's life experiences stories...I bet they can hold a strong theme line with my own...
Be Blessed All
Love, Light and Peace
Tonie
GOP senator: Stop calling Sotomayor a 'racist'
Sun May 31, 9:35 am ET
WASHINGTON – The top Republican involved in the confirmation hearings for President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee says he would prefer his colleagues refrain from calling Sonia Sotomayor a racist.
Sen. Jeff Sessions said Sunday that he would prefer fellow Republicans stop attacking Sotomayor over remarks about her background as a daughter of Puerto Rican parents. Sotomayor in 2001 said her experiences affected her decisions on the bench.
Some conservatives, such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have said Sotomayor should withdraw her nomination.
Sessions says he looks forward to meeting with Sotomayor this week and to hearing her explain her remarks about her experiences and her decisions.
Sessions spoke on NBC's"Meet the Press."
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