To Truly Become the United States of America We Must First All Agree To Be AMERICANS.
Lately it seems we are becoming more and more divided as a country between all of the protesting and everyone seems mad at everyone else. Everyday it seems as though someone or something else is being blamed for the countries problems. At the same time we have groups of people who all feel they are entitled to special treatment or free things, other groups who feel that they aren't being represented properly in the country groups that feel they are entitled to things because their parents or grandparents had it or endured something, and finally a group that think the other groups need to go away. We are seemingly in a war of the haves and have not's, its really sad because we are supposed to be the United States of America but we are anything but united right now.
In my opinion the only way we are going to truly become a United States of America we must first agree to be Americans. What do I mean by that ? Well its simple and not so simple at the same time we have to get past all the things that we allow to separate us if we are to move forward as one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We are currently so wrapped up in what makes us different we forgot what make us the same, for those of us who are new to the country, we forget why we came to America in the first place. We all seem to want to identify ourselves as anything other than simply Americans and that is a sad thing.
We ALL need to take some steps to get past whatever petty superficial garbage that we use to place a wall between us and those we are supposed to hate because they are not "us". News flash if they are American they ARE us. We need to all agree that we are not our political party, religion, gender or racial group. Its ok to be proud of all of the little pieces that make you what you are, heck I am a mutt myself but when asked what am I, I will typically say with a little grin American, not Latin-American, Italian-American just plain old American and you know what that is good enough for me. I don't need to hyphenate my heritage to make me feel special besides that is just one more thing that separates us. As you can probably guess I am not a fan of hyphenated Americanism its something that allows us to be sorted out and segregated and in my opinion its a bad thing. If you were born here and live here then guess what you my friend are just as American as me no need to apply a hyphen. This is NOT to mean that I don't value cultural differences because I do, heck I am a Italian, Puerto Rican, Irish, Native American, and Spanish dude and I'm proud of what cultures I am part of but they are not where I am from, I'm from New York which makes me an American besides can you imagine trying to hyphenate that ? Hopefully you can see and appreciate where I'm going with this now. Instead of allowing ourselves to be separated by pre defined segments of the population like race, gender, nationality lets turn the whole concept on its head. When you fill out a for ANY form where it asks race check other, when it asks nationality again say other. in both say American unless you are not from here then make the obvious selection there, for sex well just decline to answer, who's business is it anyway? I know you are probably thinking but what about Equal Opportunity ? This is a concept that just needs to die, not because it is a bad thing it is because it is because it is implemented poorly all around. How is it equal if we are segregating ourselves by selecting a predefined criteria in order to fill out an application or form. To truly be equal we should all start on the same level, and that cant be done by sorting us out and then instead of only choosing the best qualified, we are choosing the best qualified per predefined demographic criteria. All this does is create an environment of skepticism and resentment in the academic and work spaces people are wondering if the new person is there because they are actually qualified or if they had to be placed to meet a demographic compliance standard. The person who got the position or class seat is wondering the same thing about themselves, because NO ONE wants to be chosen for something because they HAD to be chosen. An alternative would be to still have the application forms, but modify them, besides its much easier to manage papers or web forms and takes up much less room than an office full of applicants. In my example the application forms should ONLY have Name, contact information and items actually relevant to the position or service being applied for, this way everyone starts on equal footing. From this point, those responsible can choose from the most qualified applications and then go to the interview process. Yes there are going to be a few surprises since you really wont know who is walking through the door for the interview unless you stalk them on social media, but there will be no pre-conceived ideas of the applicant based off the application. Now that is an equal opportunity and almost kind of like a version of the voice without the spinning chairs!
Now on to the next issue, which is a bit harder to fix because we all want to belong to something so its only natural to seek out like minded individuals the problem is that sometimes we allow the more charismatic and outspoken members of the group to set the tone for the whole group. This is where we get into trouble with each other. This problem gets worse when we add it the self segregation, that we typically apply to ourselves without even thinking about it. That almost acts as an amplifier of bad feelings towards others that are "not us" problem is THEY ARE US, we are just to blinded by the group dynamics to see it. Add to it the media and the occasional misguided member who gives the interview and answers questions with answers that have nothing to do with what the group really stands for. The group is then not taken seriously and ultimately feel they now need to ramp up their level of "civil disobedience" because of this other groups that don't really agree with that group are now totally against them and each other. You don't have to look much further than our own government to see this playing out on a daily basis. Its sad and unsat but because we are soo caught in our own self made dramas we don't take the time to really notice, nope we just pick sides. See where I went with that? yep more separation. So how do we fix this one well its pretty easy we all as a country need to get out of the habit of categorizing, and segregating ourselves. We need to stop jumping to conclusions based on things we see and hear on TV and deciding we hate each other with out ever meeting and talking to one another. That will go a long way to fixing a lot of our problems. but that is only a small part of getting where we need to be in order to truly come together as a country. . . .. The next one is going to piss people off but I think it needs to be addressed. In order to move forward together as a country we need to let go of the past. NOT FORGET let go, its different. Now there are people who wont agree with me on this but I really think we need to let go anything in the past we can not personally relate to. This will help everyone get along much better, what sense does it make to be mad at the person to the left or right of you based on a way of life that went away 152 years ago, I'm pretty old but I was not around that long. I doubt anyone reading this has any 152 year old relatives walking around either. You hate them because they mistreated your ancestors, they hate you because well, honestly there is no sensible reason other than they hate you because you hate them most of the time. Sometimes its because of a bad experience they or someone very close of them had but in those cases its hard to not justify the bad feelings (doesn't make it right though). Letting go of the past will do much more than we could ever imagine when it comes to uniting our United States. Moving forward is hard sometimes but we just have to do it.
If none of this works for you then think of it this way, we are all on this rock together, with the exception of the filthy rich this is the only place we call home so we might as well make the most of it together, instead of making the worst of it apart.
Have a good weekend
-- Mikeyman
In my opinion the only way we are going to truly become a United States of America we must first agree to be Americans. What do I mean by that ? Well its simple and not so simple at the same time we have to get past all the things that we allow to separate us if we are to move forward as one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We are currently so wrapped up in what makes us different we forgot what make us the same, for those of us who are new to the country, we forget why we came to America in the first place. We all seem to want to identify ourselves as anything other than simply Americans and that is a sad thing.
We ALL need to take some steps to get past whatever petty superficial garbage that we use to place a wall between us and those we are supposed to hate because they are not "us". News flash if they are American they ARE us. We need to all agree that we are not our political party, religion, gender or racial group. Its ok to be proud of all of the little pieces that make you what you are, heck I am a mutt myself but when asked what am I, I will typically say with a little grin American, not Latin-American, Italian-American just plain old American and you know what that is good enough for me. I don't need to hyphenate my heritage to make me feel special besides that is just one more thing that separates us. As you can probably guess I am not a fan of hyphenated Americanism its something that allows us to be sorted out and segregated and in my opinion its a bad thing. If you were born here and live here then guess what you my friend are just as American as me no need to apply a hyphen. This is NOT to mean that I don't value cultural differences because I do, heck I am a Italian, Puerto Rican, Irish, Native American, and Spanish dude and I'm proud of what cultures I am part of but they are not where I am from, I'm from New York which makes me an American besides can you imagine trying to hyphenate that ? Hopefully you can see and appreciate where I'm going with this now. Instead of allowing ourselves to be separated by pre defined segments of the population like race, gender, nationality lets turn the whole concept on its head. When you fill out a for ANY form where it asks race check other, when it asks nationality again say other. in both say American unless you are not from here then make the obvious selection there, for sex well just decline to answer, who's business is it anyway? I know you are probably thinking but what about Equal Opportunity ? This is a concept that just needs to die, not because it is a bad thing it is because it is because it is implemented poorly all around. How is it equal if we are segregating ourselves by selecting a predefined criteria in order to fill out an application or form. To truly be equal we should all start on the same level, and that cant be done by sorting us out and then instead of only choosing the best qualified, we are choosing the best qualified per predefined demographic criteria. All this does is create an environment of skepticism and resentment in the academic and work spaces people are wondering if the new person is there because they are actually qualified or if they had to be placed to meet a demographic compliance standard. The person who got the position or class seat is wondering the same thing about themselves, because NO ONE wants to be chosen for something because they HAD to be chosen. An alternative would be to still have the application forms, but modify them, besides its much easier to manage papers or web forms and takes up much less room than an office full of applicants. In my example the application forms should ONLY have Name, contact information and items actually relevant to the position or service being applied for, this way everyone starts on equal footing. From this point, those responsible can choose from the most qualified applications and then go to the interview process. Yes there are going to be a few surprises since you really wont know who is walking through the door for the interview unless you stalk them on social media, but there will be no pre-conceived ideas of the applicant based off the application. Now that is an equal opportunity and almost kind of like a version of the voice without the spinning chairs!
Now on to the next issue, which is a bit harder to fix because we all want to belong to something so its only natural to seek out like minded individuals the problem is that sometimes we allow the more charismatic and outspoken members of the group to set the tone for the whole group. This is where we get into trouble with each other. This problem gets worse when we add it the self segregation, that we typically apply to ourselves without even thinking about it. That almost acts as an amplifier of bad feelings towards others that are "not us" problem is THEY ARE US, we are just to blinded by the group dynamics to see it. Add to it the media and the occasional misguided member who gives the interview and answers questions with answers that have nothing to do with what the group really stands for. The group is then not taken seriously and ultimately feel they now need to ramp up their level of "civil disobedience" because of this other groups that don't really agree with that group are now totally against them and each other. You don't have to look much further than our own government to see this playing out on a daily basis. Its sad and unsat but because we are soo caught in our own self made dramas we don't take the time to really notice, nope we just pick sides. See where I went with that? yep more separation. So how do we fix this one well its pretty easy we all as a country need to get out of the habit of categorizing, and segregating ourselves. We need to stop jumping to conclusions based on things we see and hear on TV and deciding we hate each other with out ever meeting and talking to one another. That will go a long way to fixing a lot of our problems. but that is only a small part of getting where we need to be in order to truly come together as a country. . . .. The next one is going to piss people off but I think it needs to be addressed. In order to move forward together as a country we need to let go of the past. NOT FORGET let go, its different. Now there are people who wont agree with me on this but I really think we need to let go anything in the past we can not personally relate to. This will help everyone get along much better, what sense does it make to be mad at the person to the left or right of you based on a way of life that went away 152 years ago, I'm pretty old but I was not around that long. I doubt anyone reading this has any 152 year old relatives walking around either. You hate them because they mistreated your ancestors, they hate you because well, honestly there is no sensible reason other than they hate you because you hate them most of the time. Sometimes its because of a bad experience they or someone very close of them had but in those cases its hard to not justify the bad feelings (doesn't make it right though). Letting go of the past will do much more than we could ever imagine when it comes to uniting our United States. Moving forward is hard sometimes but we just have to do it.
If none of this works for you then think of it this way, we are all on this rock together, with the exception of the filthy rich this is the only place we call home so we might as well make the most of it together, instead of making the worst of it apart.
Have a good weekend
-- Mikeyman
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