What we need to unlearn from 2016 in order to overcome inequality & division in America

I am basically frustrated to the point where I will soon have to pare-down my social-media news feed.  Maybe you can empathize.  The problem is, 2016 made it socially acceptable to post divisiveness and be combative while we hide behind our keyboards.  Did our verbal attacks solve much, or have we made matters worse?  You tell me.

Currently we have a culture of victims who demonize the people they disagree with, or feel oppressed by.  Everyone is the enemy and everything offends us.  From Corporate America, the Feds, Wall Street, religion, our history, to politics or the school system, it's like there's a cosmic conspiracy against humanity, that is, if you listen to the news or spend much time on social media.

And, the way we discuss our very real distinctions are dividing us culturally even further.
Rich vs poor
Educated vs uneducated
Blue collar vs White collar
Straight vs Gay
Men vs Women
White vs all ethnicites
Deplorables vs Losers...
Left vs Right
Green Energy vs Fossil Fuels
Vegetarians vs Omnivores
The list really seems endless....

Am I missing something, aren't we all humans?  Don't we all share the same DNA?  Don't we all want the world to be a better place?

From Black lives matters, to Blue lives matters, to Islamophobia, homophobia, White Privilege, and to boycotting the Oscars, we've become a nation of protesters.  The problem with protesting is that it puts everyone on the defense, and when we are defensive we build walls, emotionally and otherwise.
Your message, no matter how accurate or well thought out, will never penetrate a closed mind. 

Here's an example.  Does a movie like Hidden Figures, which is about minority women who helped the space program during the Civil Rights era, does it help or hurt our our Nation's divisions?  If that questions offends you, you might be part of the problem.  It's a fair question.  I see no harm in it.

My point? How the movie is promoted, portrayed, and discussed will be what makes all the difference.  It boils down to agendas.  You are either part of the solution, or you will continue the problem, and I'm not sure how much longer we as a nation can afford to perpetuate our divisions.

In our home, from an early age, we discouraged our boys (from preschool age) to leave out the skin color of other people they told us about.  For example, when we went over their day at the dinner-table, as they recounted an experience with a classmate, if our children said, "You know, the black kid?" we would, as parents, correct them and say, "You don't tell us when another kid is white when you are telling us a story about your day, do you?  See, there's no need to say someone is black either.  We are all the same."

I share that part of our household to say, a major preliminary step to overcoming our differences and to healing what divides us is to eliminate "us vs them" from our thinking, and our vocabulary.  Highlighting or spotlighting what makes us different from each other has the potential to exasperate the divide.

Does this mean we turn a blind eye to the inequality and differences in our nation?  No.  Well, what can we do then?  We move from protesting, to participating in creating something better.  

We need to recognize some people do not want to cooperate or change, and we need to marginalize their influence.  Don't waste your time & energy on ignorant people.  You will not change them with any tactic, the more attention we give them, the more credibility they gain...  It's hard enough to change yourself and to make self-improvements, it's impossible to change other people against their will.

We have ugly, mean-spirited, prejudiced people we will have to deal with.  But there's hope, because there's nothing stopping us from collaborating with people from all backgrounds who want to work towards peace and unity.

We have hate-mongers and toxic people out there.  But we can make progress when we contain the vitriol/venomous hate-speech ourselves..., and refuse to be vindictive or seek retribution.

We can make a difference, we can be better when we cease to see ourselves though a victimized past and begin to look towards a victorious future that overcomes hate & division.  How you see yourself and others does matter.  Let's make 2017 a year where we forget what we look like on the outside and where we all do a better job at looking at what counts.

Should public schools teach Islamic history?

Today's religion column in the Kingsport Timesnews

In the minds of most of the people I know, when it comes to Islam, it’s either a confusing or it’s an unsettling religion. Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Muslims have become a centerpiece of the American conversation. For example, you can’t watch a Presidential debate or the daily news without a reference being made about some Islamic-subset.

Presently, it’s impossible to ignore the Islamic world, and, the influence of Islam on the world-stage is undeniable. Islamic mathematicians shaped Algebra as we know it and major medical advances were made by Islamic scholars during the Medieval area. One of the greatest games ever, Chess, was popularized and changed forever by Islam. From its bloody origins, even up to this day, Islam has played a major role in shaping history.

Therefore, I was shocked when I heard that some people are more comfortable allowing teachers to talk in middle school classrooms about smoking pot and using condoms, than they are with our schools teaching the history of Islam. It’s hard to fathom why it’s being proposed we remove a major portion of the Islamic historical studies from the seventh grade Social Studies curriculum.

Middle school, don’t forget, is also the phase of life when we trust our kids to learn about marijuana, meth, binge-drinking, all sorts of contraceptives and intercourse in the classroom -- it’s the time when our children are led through DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and Sex Ed. I guess no one is too concerned that these two programs might stimulate impressionable minds towards..., unwanted actions?

It seems like the paranoia surrounding the Islamic middle school curriculum rests on the illogical notion that as our young adults are exposed to historical teachings about Islam, they might become overly interested in Islam and somehow wind up indoctrinated into Islam. Should we also remove the history of the Holocaust to avoid sparking potential interest in students becoming Neo-Nazis? Will our young people become racists when they learn about the march on Birmingham?

If we can’t expose our middle schoolers to the history of Islam, what’s next, do we remove this history from our high schoolers as well? At what point do we begin to trust our students with this history? Most seventh graders have smartphones with which they can access plenty of questionable materials online. I’m not sure how this type of censorship will help our young people stay current with the rest of the Country’s educational system or help them to understand one of the greatest threats to global stability?

Could this proposal end up handicapping our students?

Make no mistake about it, Islam is dangerous. But what’s even more dangerous is having a generation of uneducated young adults ill-equipped to face the 21st Century world they live in. In the 1950’s, understanding Islam better could possibly have helped reduce the blistering turmoil which the Middle East continues to endure. It’s certainly no less important today to understand Islam, considering our current milieu.

If you really want to quell the reach of Islam, stop their funding and quit buying oil from Islamic regimes. Also, we need to be more active in the spreading of the Christian faith.

The majority of American converts to Islam today are funded by our tax dollars. No, these converts aren’t being led into the Muslim faith by studying the Quran in middle school. It’s within the walls of our prison system that many people become Muslims. Sadly, Islamic chaplains are able to reach an angry and captive audience, on your dime.

Our young people need to be educated about the history of Islam if they want to take part in educated conversations surrounding one of the most talked about subgroups on the daily news. Kids need to see the differences in Islam and other world religions and they need to comprehend that Islam is concerned with only one goal, world domination. But, shielding our youth from the history of this movement only keeps them ignorant -- unenlightened minds are powerless to make educated decisions.

The Bible never endorses ignoring evil, or false teachers, which I think describes Islam well. Instead, the Bible has instructions to confront these difficulties head on, such as, “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ...” (2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV)

Our young people need to begin as soon as possible learning about the Muslim culture and its heritage if they are to understand how deal with the threat it poses. It’s senseless for young adults to enter high school not knowing what Ramadan is, or to remain ignorant to why Islam is divided between Sunni and Shiites. How do you keep the integrity of a middle school history curriculum and neglect the Crusades or the Ottoman Empire?

In the end, to remove the study of Islam risks disabling the framework for understanding the dividing line between the East and the West, and therefore our young people won’t be able to process world events as well. I get it, people are frightened by Islam. Still, yet another way for me to put this: If you are led by fear, you aren’t being led by faith.