Thursday, March 17, 2011

Am I Naive?

I've been reading what I can about the horrible crisis in Japan.  I say "what I can" because I am an extremely emotional person.  I see others' heartache, pain, devastation and I take it as my own (the same with positive things, it's just that the sad is overwhelming in this story), meaning I put myself in their place and feel as if it had happened to me.  This has resulted in my distancing myself from most news....my heart and soul cannot take it.  I become depressed, devastated and it results in worrying on my part.  Jake has stopped telling me about sad stories about children, because he knows I just cannot handle it.

So in part, I know I create my own naivete.  I don't keep up on current events as much as I "should" because the human stories behind the news break my heart.  I have to do it for my own well-being.  That being said, I'm shocked by what I've been reading lately.

APPARENTLY, there is a large underlying issue in the United States: racism and hatred towards the Japanese.  There are men and women who hate the Japanese and can never forgive them for what happened at Pearl Harbor and WWII in general.  Now, I understand that this was a devastating time for our nation and that it greatly influenced my grandparents' generation.  That it was a scary time and that for many of these people their lives were never the same because of it.  I also know, that it has been close to 70 years since the horrible event and that those involved and responsible for those events left our world long ago.  I also KNOW, that NO MATTER what you feel about a group of people, to say that they "deserved" or "had it coming" in regards to this horrendous disaster is heartless and my eyes defines you as a person.  And in my eyes, that's not a very good person.

I'm extremely angry about this.  I don't care who you are, people do NOT deserve to have their lives swept away from them, to live through this devastation, to have their entire world fall apart.  Yes, it happens.  This is the world we live in....bad things happen.  But no one, NO ONE, deserves it.  No one can earn to have their country in crisis like this.

So apparently I was pretty naive about the amount of racism towards the Japanese in our country.  And now I'm all fired up and ticked off about it.  Too bad that when I get fired up and ticked off I have a horrible time articulating my thoughts.

Ok...vent over.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I had to tell a student yesterday to stop talking because he was saying this sort of stuff..made my stomach hurl... I was really upset. And of course this is stuff he has heard because he is only 14 maybe 15... my LORD!

Carol E. said...

Oh gawd, I am so glad I have not heard any of this. I guess I should not be surprised, but I am. I'm with you, Melissa. It makes my heart hurt.