Be the Change

Another one

I wrote about one of these in my journal recently. The local paper has a Commentary section, where they print phone calls and emails from readers. I found this one today:

You know it goes to show there is always a higher power working no matter if you believe in God, Jehovah no matter what you call them, there is always a higher power. There is a fine example at what is happening to this country with all the stuff going on. Look at the towns and cities that are being punished. Texas, Mexico, Japan, there is a reason for that, the higher power is at work. Do unto others and you get it back. Evil begot evil. It looks like Mexico is getting exactly what they deserve. They came to our small towns, they ruined our towns, they brought their crimes and drugs with them. Look at Shenandoah, Hazleton and Pottsville and all these small towns fighting shooters and murders. You get what you sow.

The caller was from Shenandoah, the town in which I formerly lived. That's the type of mentality I have to deal with around here. Not everyone thinks like this, but a good bit of the people around here do, and it's really sad to me - to think that a nationality or an entire country is responsible for local crime; to think that a nationality or country is "evil."

There is a great deal of crime in that town, and in towns around here, but it's not one nationality committing those crimes. When I read the Police Log in the paper, I'd say at least 80% of the crimes are alcohol-related. They don't print criminals' racial backgrounds in the paper, so I don't know where these people think they're getting their information. When my house was broken into, it was two white guys trying to rob the restaurant around the corner and broke into my house. When we spent a few hours at the local courthouse that day, I saw only white people there.

The towns around here contain a mixture of cultural backgrounds, from Polish to Irish to Lithuanian and so on. In recent years, immigrants from Mexico have been moving in. (Whether they're legal or not, I have no idea, and neither do most of the people living here) For some reason, these citizens who come from very diverse backgrounds, whose own families were immigrants moving in, are extremely angered by another nationality moving in.

Oh, and this is the same town that had their second annual Heritage Day or Unity Day this past weekend, which included a parade celebrating the different nationalities that reside in the area. (I covered the event last year for the newspaper)

The whole thing just really saddens me. To think that something bad happens to a place because they deserve it? They're being punished? I'm sorry, but that seems so wrong to me. You know, we had really bad flooding here two years ago. I wonder what they thought of that.