Kicking the can down the road

This morning I listened to The Constitution podcast, which discussed the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Produced by the Washington Post, this, well-researched and produced, program covered not only the details of the hot summer spent with the 55 men who toiled to create the document that framed what we call upon almost daily as the structure that makes us Americans, but what it takes to create the parchment on which it was written.
One important theme was that, in order to come up with the Constitution at all, the issue of slavery was going to be in the original document. And that the issue was going to be “kicked down the road” a minimum of 20 years.
This is what is so sad to me. We made compromises to build a nation. A nation built on a statute that stated that negro males were 3/5ths of a person to give southern states extra population in order to boost their representation in Congress. The Fugitive Slave provisions would force free states to return any slaves who ran from slavery. And half the population was excluded from the union completely.
The framers kicked the can down the road for future generations to deal with, and here we are 230 plus years down the road since its writing and still we have people who feel that it would be just and right to own another human being. And that the color of someone’s skin makes them lesser than another.
It is time to stop kicking the can down the road. I thought my nieces grew up in a truly multi-cultural world, seeing their friends, growing up, but I know that even there they had their challenges. Even being middle class has its challenges. Middle class is not what it once was.
It is clear that there has been bubbling hate. All my friends that say they hate “politically correct” I say, I hate those who hate. If you can’t find a kind way to talk to one another, then perhaps it is you that needs to check yourself. It isn’t “politically correct,” it is polite.
I hope others will stand with me and stop kicking this can down the road. Stop hating others simply because you don’t understand them. Take a deep breath. Ask them questions. Sit and listen. Be better.
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