filters off

Watching SNL and Taylor Swift is performing. She's giving nods to the sax player and her face looks flawless and I'm sitting here wondering if Live TV is filtered? Well -- we know that the information we get, in our daily lives, is filtered in so many ways -- subtle or obvious -- filters are put on everything to the point of choosing one vivid warm or dramatic cool -- we are searching out a feel that fits how we want to see ourselves.

What is sad to me is that our news is our filter to life. We pick a channel to let us know what is happening in our world. This isn't okay. Our news should not be filtered. We should have objective, unobscured information so that we actually have REAL information about what is going on in this world. What point is a vote if we have no clear idea of what our vote really means?

Personally, I'm sick of a division that doesn't need to be there. We have more in common than we don't. Seriously, this is so stupid that we are in the middle of a crazy pandemic that we all are affected by -- but we're hostile over whether or not to wear a mask. It is so far beyond that . . . and at this point we need to just respect each other.

George Floyd -- he had nothing to do with a mask -- but he has everything to do with what is going on with our country. PC, filters -- if we take them away and get a good look at our country -- aren't we all confused by how we got here? We haven't come as far as I believe a lot of us would like to be. If you are reading this and are white -- I'm guessing most of the people on my email are white because, sadly, our communities are incredibly segregated, but unless you know someone black -- you may not realize how tragic our world has been to a large portion of our population.. I have a friend in my life, a second mother -- a grandmother to our children, and if I hadn't known her, I maybe would never have known how stagnant our country has been in change when it comes to the constant underlying tension of race. The news that flashes across our screens telling stories of a black man shot in one incident and another, and then we move on -- and here we are in a place that I think a lot of us do not want to be -- that's tragic.

Yes, there are people in our world that have beliefs that I don't share -- but if you go to church on Sundays or on your computer, then for that fact alone you must believe that there is no God that would wish injustice or harm, suffering, for ANY human being. The color of someone's skin is no different than blue eyes or brown. Genetics, my friend -- that's it. Anatomy, physiology, emotionally -- we are the SAME. Please please stop letting politics create the world we exist in. We are better than that --- we are smarter than that. Deep down, we do not need the news to tell us what our hearts feel or what our minds think. That is up to us. Turn off your TVs and look around at your fellow human beings. If you are afraid, then we need to work on reconciling that we are all afraid. Every one of us. A black person is afraid to get in a car and get pulled over. A white person has no idea what that is like -- it is an irritation that might result in getting a ticket for speeding (when, in truth, you probably were speeding), A black person will get pulled over just for being black and driving a car and their whole world could fall away. It's so not okay.

To be honest, I know everyone I know realizes this about me, but I am so blown apart that we have a person representing who we are, what we believe, what we stand for in the world, that is so far apart from my own beliefs. It isn't even a matter of typical party line disagreements -- which everyone is completely entitled to in this beautifully diverse country. It is the fact that the person I see on TV is amoral, he does not uphold the position that has been given to him with the honor it deserves, and he does not represent us justly in the worldview. He has diminished us -- as a country -- as people in this world who are more than what he tweets. I'm just sad that we have come to this point and I want so much more for my kids than to have this person representing them and leadings their futures.