The Eclipse, Homestead National Park, and My White Ignorance

One of my favorite things to do is to throw on a backpack, check out National Parks, and learn about different people and history of this country.  Today, I got to do this in my own state.  We were at the Homestead National Park in Beatrice, Nebraska for the eclipse events.  (Sadly, we didn’t get a bunch of time to see the Homestead history of the park, but we are planning on returning to check that out!)  As usual, I have a few points I want to talk about in this post, so feel free to scroll to the different topics.

Racism

One of the many cool things we saw today was a dance troupe from Winnebago, Nebraska called the Many Moccasins Dance Troupe.  Watching these different dances and hearing some of the stories and meanings behind these traditions were so interesting.  I love seeing different ways people assemble and live their daily lives, along with traditions and customs other cultures hold dear. 

The entire time, I was reminded of my ignorance as a white person.  One of the questions criminal justice jobs supposedly ask is if you stereotype people, or having anything against a certain group of people.  The answer we’re taught to give is that of course, all people have stereotypes even if they have the best intentions, but that we are constantly working on moving past these stereotypes.  However, I don’t feel I actually stereotype anyone; I’m just ignorant in so many ways due to the color of my skin. 

You see, growing up, I never really had to deal with discrimination (as a white person.  The whole discrimination based on being a girl thing is a totally different topic).  There were of course those few times that I got mocked for being a stupid white person, but I really never blame anyone for that remark.  In 99.99% of my life, I will never have to feel like my skin color is what someone sees me as.  I have never had to try to fight for my “culture” or really lack thereof, to be allowed to be practiced in my country.  I have never been told to speak the "proper" language, or look a certain way based on my race.  I have never had to be on the other side of that, I've never been told to be ashamed of my ethnic background.  Many times, whites tend to think that talking about racism is 1) in the past, and 2) only political or otherwise uncomfortable.  But if we look towards history, we can be reminded that many times, issues like these have been prevalent, and the people that turned away did not help anything. 

The Many Moccasins Dance Troupe speaker touched a bit on this at the end of their dances.  Part of why they do what they do is to educate others about their culture.  Imagine that, having to tell other people that hey! Yeah!  My culture still exists.  He made that wonderful point of: “If you’d cut open our hands, and all compare what comes out, it is the same color.  It is red.  And that is something we all share here as human beings.”   He reminded us that Christ taught us to Love thy neighbor and their beliefs are Respect and Love Each Other.  I was very happy to hear the applause that broke out from the (primarily white) crowd at this point.  Remember, no hate group represents an entire race.

While I am already on this subject, I am going to continue a bit.  Firstly, if you never have to think about racism, you’re never on the opposite side of it.  That means you are lucky.  If you do not have to wake up and consider what part of your background or skin color might be mocked that day, you are privileged.  And we don’t deserve that privilege.  NOTHING we did gave us that privilege, we were simply born.  Other people were simply born with other colors of skin.  I see no reason for that to cause hate.  We have different eye and hair colors as well, but nobody really gets discriminated for that. 

Secondly, this is something I have honestly always wondered and just want explained… Why do white people who think racism is honestly okay then want to be TAN?  Like, there is such a prominence in white people thinking that a) they are superior and b) they need to be as tan as they can be.  Is anyone else confused by this?  Can someone explain?

Now onto my point of Christianity, the KKK, and me wanting to throw up.  To the people who think that the Bible is somehow correlated to white supremacy, you are wrong on many levels.  Let me just point some major ones out to you now!  JESUS WAS NOT WHITE.  That’s right!  Jesus, the Messiah of the Bible, the One who saved our sins?  He was a Jew.  He did not have white skin, from what history has taught us.  Also, Jesus’ greatest commandment, as stated in all of the Gospels, was to love God, and to love each other.  He didn’t say “Oh, just love the people that look just like you.” Nope!  Jesus calls us to love one another.  Check out Matthew 22:37-40, Mark 12:29-31, and John 13:34-35.  Want another cool verse?  Look up Isaiah 56:7/Mark 11:17 – “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”  In Titus 3, we see in verses 9-10 that we are to avoid “foolish controversies and genealogies…because these are unprofitable and useless.”  We are to warn divisive people.  Christianity is a religion of love, not hate.  We are called, not to divide his people, but to love and care for them all.  Do not use our Loving Lord Jesus to ridicule, hate, and destroy other people, they are Jesus’ too. 

Overall, let us remember this: We are all on this planet with the same colored blood running through out veins.  Let us use history as a guide as what NOT to repeat! 

If you want to have any sort of conversation on this (or any topic I post about), please just comment or message me.  I’d love to learn from others and help educate others that we cannot just be silent about these issues.  Just please, have an open-minded conversation. 

ASL

Another super cool aspect of the events today was that the speakers all had ASL interpreters on their sides!  I am currently working on teaching myself ASL, and I was so intrigued with watching the interpreters all day (I almost got distracted from the presentations themselves).  I really want to learn to be much better at using ASL, but I’m not sure where in Eastern Nebraska I could go to do this.  If anyone has any suggestions or knows of a class, please comment or message me!  (Shameless plug to watch the show Switched at Birth because they use ASL quite frequently and talk about the deaf community.  It is so interesting!)

Eclipse: August 21, 2017

Alright, so the main focus of today: Monday’s eclipse!  As a lover of the sun, moon, stars, and space, I am really interested to see the moon block out the sun on Monday.  I think I’m most excited to see the corona, but Bailey’s Beads and diamond ring will be so cool, too! I’m really hoping to catch the horizon line all around me, and also see the nocturnal animals start to stir.  I’ve gone to about 4 or 5 eclipse-hype events now, so I am READY TO SEE THIS THING!  I’ve also had so many cool chances to meet and talk to people that work for NASA, too.  Today, I got 2 NASA bags! I’m totally geeking out.  While traveling to Mars is coming up for NASA, this summer, I’ve figured out that I love learning about space exploration.  While I am not sure we should be ethically able to go trash another planet after we have wrecked our Earth (another shameless plug to please recycle and be environmentally conscious), I think the exploration of space is so interesting and I love learning about it.  I am so excited to watch the eclipse though, and I’m really glad Holly and I are going to go check it out from the path of totality somewhere! 

So, let’s have an eclipse conversation! Please comment/message me your answers-

- If you are planning on seeing the eclipse, where are you planning on seeing it?

- Are you planning on taking pictures of it?

- Do you have any pointers on taking eclipse pictures?

- If you aren’t going to see it, will you watch the live feed?

Feel free to ask me questions about the eclipse, because I have learned so much about it recently!