Some day

  I guess the Grammys were last night judging by my Facebook news feed. I had heard they might have to reschedule due to weather but guess that didn't happen. I've seen where Taylor Swift won, Miley Cyrus won, and Jay Z was complaining that Beyonce didn't win. It's a race thing, I guess. I couldn't say I don't watch those award shows and have no interest in them whatsoever. Celebrities giving other celebrities awards voted on by other celebrities. I have to look it up every once in a while, what the awards are even for. Grammys are for music, Academy Awards for acting, and there are others. Anyway, my point being I don't care much about those awards. I just like the music I like; watch the movies I enjoy and admire some of those folks doing that. Congratulations to the winners, I guess.

 It is also black history month. I'll be hearing a lot about accomplishments by black people. I don't have an issue with that. Being black doesn't make you any different than any other race on the planet. It has nothing to do with intelligence or ability. It does have a significant impact on your social standing, especially in America. That is what civil rights and equity is all about. Seems quite obvious to me and a part of the human condition. My thinking is if you want to be viewed as being the same as everyone else, you need to quit making yourself different. It's what sociologists call assimilation. As long as you propagate the concept and ideas of a different culture, you will be different from the current culture. You can't be in defiance of the current culture and assimilate into that culture. It's that way with morality and ethics as well. You can't buck the system and comply with the system at the same time.

 I understand the idea behind honoring your cultural identity. You are proud of where your ancestors came from. You are proud of their culture and achievements. My ancestors, at least a portion of them, where Germans from Bavaria. I should be wearing Leder Housen, listening to oom- pah mucic  and drinking beer out of a stein. I don't because I have no clue about what that culture really is. No more a clue than many blacks in America have about living in Africa. I'm German, Swedish and English through genetics. I'm an American by culture. Being an American isn't a race, it is a culture. It can and should be that way with everyone living in America. It's what old Teddy Roosevelt was talking about in 1907. Many today get real upset about what he said. What he was talking about was shared values. It's my feeling we share the same values. We aren't all that different really.

 Teddy Roosevelt, then Colonel Roosevelt had this in part to say. " "The effort to keep our citizenship divided against itself," the colonel continued, "by the use of the hyphen and along the lines of national origin is certain to a breed of spirit of bitterness and prejudice and dislike between great bodies of our citizens. If some citizens band together as German-Americans or Irish-Americans, then after a while others are certain to band together as English-Americans or Scandinavian-Americans, and every such banding together, every attempt to make for political purposes a German-American alliance or a Scandinavian-American alliance, means down at the bottom an effort against the interest of straight-out American citizenship, an effort to bring into our nation the bitter Old World rivalries amid jealousies and hatreds."^2" 

  He made a good point in my opinion. People still aren't listening to that though. Maybe some day.