The View From Here

There's so much happening that it's hard to start, as it has been two years since I've written. From March 2020 to June 2020, much of the US (and the world) was shut down to the COVID-19 pandemic. It's strange to read my past postings and to find myself here - isolated most of the time and hesitant to leave the confines of my home due to this highly contagious virus which to date has killed over 500,000 and has infected over 14 million , and disproportionately impacted BIPOC . Then in May, our nation was roiled once again in racial violence with the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minnesota. As a result, many companies, organizations, and institutions published statements of support and a commitment to change. What's disheartening is that the murders of Black men, women, boys and girls have been happening for time out of mind, and in recent memory have been viewed and heard in social media for at least a decade. Four years ago I walked i...

Last month while waiting in line for the airport security check, I heard a child's voice and thought she may have been lost. Having young nieces as well as all the news reports of kidnappings of kids, well, I'm attuned to responding to kids who may seem lost. Rather than ignore, I usually try to find out who the kid "belongs" to and help locate the parent(s). So I turn to a woman that's near me in line and asked, "Is she with the wrong parents?" I know, a strange way to put it but it just came out my mouth that way. In any case, the woman glared at me and said in a cold voice, "Oh, she's with the RIGHT parents." I looked at her and saw that she was White and saw the child (who I didn't see before; I only heard her voice) who, guess what, was Black.  Yikes.  I clearly was misunderstood and I clearly offended her. I simply froze even as much as I wanted to apologize to her (I really wish now that I did). I'm sure she was thinki...