Are You In The Ku Klux Klan?

I really love kids. But then, I don't understand people who dislike them. As cliché as this will be, they are just like sunshine on a cloudy day.

I'm trying to become a better writer, and now I feel awful about cramming this post with clichés. I've only written four sentences, and I already have one. If I get to the last sentence and I'm still weighed down with overwhelming guilt, I'll revise it.

Yesterday I drove the minivan that my parents gave me to bring some kids to my church's Bible club. I've done that for a few weeks, and I can finally find their houses without my Maps app! Yes, it took me that long. They were all waiting for me, as always, loud voices and big smiles.

It all went fairly smoothly. I only had four kids instead of a whole crowd, so I didn't have to go through the I-only-have-six-seats speech. I didn't have to talk to any parents or comfort the crying left behind. I had four of my regular kids, and they know they're supposed to buckle up right away. I told them if they didn't distract me, we would make it on time!

Then they started talking about Mike Brown and Darren Wilson (although they didn't know his name). Saying that all cops are racist and stupid.

Now, I feel a responsibility to these kids- sometimes, as though I might be the only voice in their lives Saying Otherwise. 

I couldn't just keep quiet.

I told them that it was a lie and that it was really hurtful to them to believe it. I told them that cops risk their lives to protect us, that they're not racist, that Michael Brown attacked Officer Wilson.

I didn't say everything I thought about it. I didn't tell them how horrible it was that people's homes and workplaces burned to the ground over the death of a thug. I didn't say that our president encouraged the violence while pretending to discourage it, that he is consistently fake and I really, really dislike fake people. That I have no respect for him no matter what Christian people say, when they say "Gotta respect the president!" because respect is earned and he is destroying my country and dividing it up by race just to get votes. Setting one group of Americans against another. That I despise Al Sharpton and I despise every single criminal who burned and looted over Michael Brown. That now, Darren Wilson, an innocent, honorable man, will fear for his life, for the rest of his life. For nothing. For stupidity.

I didn't say all that. This is what I said: "Michael Brown attacked the police officer. There was forensic evidence that he did."

This is what I got: yelling so that I couldn't say another word. Hands over ears. "That's what you think because you're white!" they shouted. "White cops don't like black folks, they want to shoot us!" The little one bounced up and down on the back seat. "I saw it on TV! I saw it on TV!"

I tried to tell them that we can't believe everything we see on TV. People are lying. "Do you know why they're lying?" I asked, then answered my own question while I could still get a word in edgewise. "They're lying because they want you to vote for them!"

Then the question from the boy in the front seat. "So, are you a member of the Ku Klux Klan?"

It's okay. I'm not mad at the boy. I told him to apologize because I wanted him to know how inappropriate it was to ask me that.

I'm mad at the politicians who convinced the adults in his life, and then him, to think that way. The sniveling idiots- I don't usually call names, but they ARE sniveling idiots- whose prize political strategy is the fabrication of racism. It's hurting my kids- I don't want any of them to be the next Michael Brown. So convinced that the police (and even all white people) are against them that they only want to fight. It's hurting my country. A girl I met the other day tried to compare the US to third world countries where riots happen daily. "I don't think we understand what that's like, and we make such a big deal over one riot," she said.

Guess what, girl I met the other day? It's where we're headed! Don't take such smug satisfaction in America having less violence than other countries! Can't you see that we are deteriorating? Sure, it's gradual, but that doesn't mean we won't become a third world country! Sure, we have been blessed, and I am grateful, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let that blessedness slip away, when there is something I can do about it!

I tried, in my own small way. And I think I communicated to four kids that the real racism in this situation is black people making assumptions about white policemen. Just because they're white.

And I want to pick up America, just cut it right out of a Rand McNally map, and shake it and say, "Stop promoting racism while you're pretending to decry it! Stop lying to my Bible club kids! Stop, just stop!"