The Insidiousness of Supremacy Attitudes

With the recent rise in white supremacist rallies, I cannot help but comment on the harmful and surprisingly pervasive attitudes that lead people to believe that the group they belong, whether that be based on gender, nationality, religion, race, or any other grouping, is superior to others.

I would like to say it is hard to believe that there are people out there that really believe the color of your skin make you superior but obviously there are. Perhaps even more prevalent is the believe that your religion is so superior to others that it is good to drive a car into innocent people to prove so. Ironically, the same method used in the Charlottesville attack. Humans are both a wonderful and terrible species.

Although there are probably more white supremacists out there than I think, I suspect it is a small minority. But underlying discriminatory attitudes are quite prevalent, albeit often in subtle ways.

My kids were in Cub Scouts and I was a den leader. It was a great experience but it always bugged me that the group was part of the Boy Scouts. Sure there is an apartheid like Girl Scout organization but it should be just Scouts. After all what if it were WASP Boys Scouts? I made sure my kids understood my view on this.

I once saw a segment on the news about a computer coding camp for girls. One of the girls, probably no more than 10 years old, stated that "Girls are better than boys" which put a big smile on the reporter's face. I cringed. The way I like to examine whether an action or attitude is discriminatory is quite simple - just substitute out one group for the other and see if you still agree. In other words, reverse the argument. If it was a boy stating, "Boys are better than girls" there would have been an uproar.

I had an augment in the 1990s with my former in-laws about Russia. They said that Russians were evil. Not the government but the people. All of them. It was impossible to convince them otherwise.

As I have mentioned before, it is comedy when a woman strikes a man but horrific when a man strikes a woman. Yet we know that women commit 50% of the violent acts in relationships.

People are still upset that women are now allowed in combat positions in the military, As well as homosexuals. And I suppose there are still those who would like to go back to a segregated military. Make america great again, huh?

The Black Lives Matter movement is strong in Minnesota. In many ways I agree with their goals but I really wish they called themselves All Lives Matter.

98+ percent of alimony is paid for by men. What is the justification other than women are so inferior to men that they must be taken care of by a man?

To reduce violence and make our planet a better place to live for all, we must reduce all forms of discrimination.