Americans - come together!!

I am so frustrated by the decisiveness of this country!

I was just talking with an old friend who was raised a Democrat. Over the years, due to different work experiences and real life situations, he's opened his mind to other ways of political thinking. Our  conversations have been exciting and informational for the past 10 years.

Anyway, we grew up in Gainesville Florida. Our high school was fairly diverse - drawing not only different colors of people but also first generation immigrants with the ESL (English as a Second Language) program. The biggest bullying wasn't between blacks and whites, it was against gays, the weirdos and the obese - no matter the color. This statement is not in approval of the small-mided people who did the bullying, it's just an observation.

Getting back to today... my friend and I were drawing from our past in which we didn't experience racism (granted, I know we're white, but we're observant!), we didn't participate in racism and we are utterly confused and frustrated by the race divide that has been created by our government.

The Obama presidency was supposed to bring people together. Instead, it's driven a wedge between races that didn't exist 10 years ago. Another friend of mine, who refers to herself as "African American", and I spoke this weekend about how her kids don't know any different than the middle-class lifestyle they have in Kennesaw Georgia. They would not feel at home in the slums or Atlanta just because there are more black people there. It's a CULTURE thing, not a skin color thing. White trash is white trash, ghetto folk are ghetto folk and gangsters are gangsters, no matter the color.

So, why is there so much talk about whites vs. blacks? Shouldn't we all be tackling the culture of violence? The culture of government dependence? Shouldn't we all band together to stop crime, to protect our neighborhoods, to encourage independence, to build our children up to be productive members of society? Shouldn't we all be screaming mad that our unemployment rate is near double digits and it's even higher for the poverty stricken, low-income citizens?

Let's stand up for American values for all corners of this great nation. We Americans are strong-willed, hard workers, creative thinkers and freedom-loving. The longer we let the government divide us, the harder it will be to come back together.