King George - The Texecutioner

I had a very interesting conversation with my uncle last night. My whole family is going to Texas at the end of this month and Dave and I are flying into King George's (as my friend Scott Sloan calls him) airport. I mentioned "King George, The Texecutioner" to my uncle and he definately has a much different view on our president than I do. That branched to MANY conversations including the war, the sanctity of life, executions, absentee fathers and black americans. I think the thing that bothers me the most is the lies that many white people (black people as well) believe about the black population in this country. I just finished a racism training that is called Racism Dialogues held by the YWCA. I learned a lot from this training. The most important I think that I learned is: As a white person I cannot say when or if racism doesn't exist. I think many white people would say that there isn't much racism going on in this country or in certain parts of this country any longer. Because, as white americans, we would have not experienced racism against us, I don't think that we can say or judge when it no longer exitst (in any kind of capacity). I have a question for you. How old were you when you noticed the color of your skin?

The Sanctity of life is another issue for me. I know that people say(or think) that it is biblical to kill someone for murdering someone (the whole eye for an eye thing). Some people say there is a difference between murder and killing. I don't know if people put certain things in the right context when they are convinced (especially biblically) that such a heavy issue is certainly the right thing to do. Does that make sense? Shouldn't we be more sure (or knowledgable) about something and why we believe (for example capital punishment) it's ok or good to do, rather than base that on what some inital impressions or interpretations are. I'm not convinced that capital punishment is biblical. Yet I cannot say that if some man raped and murdered a daughter of mine that I would want him to remain living. I do know that I don't trust our judicial system and I don't believe it's just or fair. So, I cannot believe that capital punishment is just and fair. I do believe in the sanctity of life for all and I don't want to leave it up to my governement to judge when capital punshment is the right thing in a situation (and I don't want to make that judgement myself either).

I couple of things to look at. I don't necessarily fully endource the first link - but find them all mind boggling and interesting.

http://www.ccadp.org/bushkills.htm

http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/karla.html

http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/whiteprivilege.htm

God Bless,
Love
Kara