Not So Humane Society – Revisited

Posted on December 9, 2002 in Social Justice

chari the goddess of the good karma wrote in a comment on my Not So Humane Society article:

Gah… I’m assuming Anna doesn’t know you or Lynn, Joel. My goodness.

One note: I do agree with what you were trying to say in the first place — that they could have attempted to offer assistance with the vet bill, or offered free vet service for the cat. An eye infection doesn’t cost much to treat; unless you’re homeless.

I didn’t see you saying anything in there about offering the homeless man a place to stay… as obviously he was quite happy in his little trailer. So I have no idea where Anna is coming from.

Thanks chari. I figure that Anna must have found me through a link or search engine. There’s a link to Bink’s page and Bink is decidedly African American. So I guess she presumed that I had to be African American, too. Some people seem to believe that whites only talk to whites and blacks to blacks. Go figure.

Up until that last sentence, I feel she was talking reasonably. I still didn’t agree with her, but I could accept it as just another point of view. After reading it to the end, however, my feelings changed entirely. Some one did not learn the lessons of justice and compassion from her alledged stint on the streets.

Coupled with Trent Lott’s comments over the weekend, I feel a little nervous about America slinging back to the bad old days of racial segregation and hatred. I expect that if Anna dares to reply to this, she will vehemently deny that she’s racist and attempt to accuse you, me, and Bink of being the real bigots here.

It’s a trick people who have lost their compassion pull on those of us who still reflect on the things we do and say. They’ll try to tie us up in self-recriminations so that we don’t notice that they never apply these principles to themselves.