Saying it my way . . .

Discrimination and tribalism has been around for a long time resulting in slavery, oppression, murder, special treatment for groups in power, and so on.� Discrimination is not new nor is it limited to the United States but has its foundation in much earlier periods.

Most ancient cultures had slaves; the ancient Egyptians had slaves.� Peasant slaves during the Middle Ages were called serfs and they performed agricultural and other activities in exchange for protection, shelter and food from the nobility.

A thousand years ago, there were numerous tribes of people that either defended or fought for land, food, shelter, wealth, or to capture people to put into slavery.� Just a few of these European tribes were the Franks, Celts, Vikings, Normans, Saxons, Swabians, Slavs, Germans, Magyars, Moravians, Danes, Serbians, Croatians, Macedonians, Bohemians, Montenegros, Bosnians, etc.�� I did not include any of the Native North or South American tribes or tribes from Asia, the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the Pacific Islands, or Africa or the aboriginal peoples from Australia because I am only mentioning the above for the purpose of an example.� I specifically did not mention the aboriginal people of Antarctica because I dont remember reading anything about them lately.��

Some tribes didnt discriminate against one another they just killed as many as they could in a day, captured the others, and returned to their hunting and gathering activities and hobbies.

So is modern day discrimination an extension of ancient tribalism that I have described above, or are certain groups of people just being picked on because of age, race, religion, and gender?� There is no easy answer but we all know our reasons.

Some of my ancestors came to this country as indentured servants as a way to pay for their passage.� Societies and cultures were vastly different then compared to today.� Slavery has always been wrong but it was a way of life, be they slaves from Africa, Egypt, the European continent or wherever.

Moreover, discrimination will always be around in one form or another and manifested in blatant and overt forms or in very subtle forms.� As long as people have physical appearances that differ from others, there will always be an attempt to stereotype the other person.� This perhaps speaks very loudly about our own shortcomings and fear of strangers.� If one group of people can lump a group of another people into one pile that they can define and perhaps disparage then in one sense they may feel that they have gained some degree of control over the targeted group.�

I suppose its human nature but it is time for all of us to look ahead instead of always looking back.� It seems that if we are going to constantly look back at our sad history of inhumanity to one another then we will always be stumbling over the imaginary road blocks that we in one way or another have set up for ourselves.� Its time to let go of the past, but lets not forget the past else we repeat it.� Some of our ancestors were victims, but do we want to continue our lives as victims too?� If so, then we are really volunteers and not victims.� Its time to crawl out of your pity bag and get on with living.  (copyright 2005 - Jim Woodward)