Masks of Hate

Slave Masters.

The Church.

The Klan.

The Anarchists.

The Nihilists.

The Fascists.

The Neo-Nazis.

The Skinheads.

The White Supremacist.

The Proud Boys.

The Boogaloo.

Pepe the Frog.

Q-Anon.

The history of the masks of hate.

The masks of hate that people wear.

People, yes, people wear these masks for a reason they believe in.

People wear masks of hate to cover their fear.

A fear planted into their spirits by people they trusted.

A fear of a world they do not want to see come into existence.

People fear a world where everyone is equal.

Because in an authentic sense of fear, equality means personal responsibility.

If everyone is equal, there is no one to blame when things go wrong except for yourself.

When life doesn't turn out the way you expect it, who is to blame?

Whole societies, whole industries, and whole religions base their existence on blaming the other.

The other guy, the other stranger, the other foreigner, the other unrighteous asshole.

Scapegoats.

A person, a people, to blame for why we don't have nice things.

I certainly can't be to blame because God is on my side.

I'm not the asshole.

My friends believe the same way; we can't be wrong.

My parents wouldn't lie to me.

Masks of hate.

And who maintains these masks of hate?

Who has built empires of wealth on the destruction caused by these masks?

People with wealth and power.

Ever try to take a bone away from a hungry dog?

A hungry dog will bite your hand.

It will let you die so it can have just one last chew on its bone.

It won't listen to reason.

Its only concern is that the bone belongs to it.

The bone is believed to be the dog's only means of survival.

If the dog hasn't learned how to share, trying to take a bone away from it will bloody your hand.

People wear all kinds of masks.

The mask of hate covers the fear of reprisal.

That inevitable future that is coming, we can all see it now.

A brotherhood of man where blacks and whites live together.

They judge each other by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

People have a fear of this future becoming real.

They imagine the same horrors that they allowed to happen to black and brown people to be reciprocated.

They are fighting for a false way of life.

Just like that dog fighting for that last piece of gristle on a bone.

So, as we prepare to vote out the White House's chief hater and creep, keep in mind the prize.

A world where children are no longer taught to wear masks.

A world where children can be who they are.

Free, living in truth and justice for all.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Drop Hate

When I became an adult, I put away childish things.

When I was blind, I could not see the suffering.

When I was deaf, I could not hear the cries for freedom.

When I could not walk, I rolled in my own intellectual filth.

When I was mute, I did not speak up for the oppressed.

When my heart was cold, I could not feel.

I could not feel.

Age does not create wisdom.

The original idea is that with age, you gain experience and learn from mistakes.

Humanity teaches us again and again our willingness to commit the same mistakes over and over and over again.

This time, we'll get what we want.

Age does not create wisdom.

Humanity is like a forest.

In a forest, you have life growing at many different rates.

Some fast.

Some slow.

Some don't give a shit and are stunted.

Life progresses to maturity on a broad scale.

Some seeds fall into the earth too early.

The late winter snow kills off the blossoms.

Some fall too late.

The waning sun, the cold earth, the seeds never burst through the ground.

They lay dead, never to see the sky.

We who walk through the forest only see those that were successful.

We don't think about the tens of thousands of seeds that had potential but were wasted.

A seed.

A seed in the forest.

I became an adult.

I stepped out of the shell of my seed and created a life beyond self.

I opened my eyes and saw that the war between the states had not ended.

I opened my ears and heard the same cry for peace down the darkened streets of this nation.

I stood on my legs and joined the march in the street.

I found my voice and spoke truth to power.

My heart beat in my chest, and I could feel.

My mind was opened.

I heard a voice call my name.

It said to put away the hate.

Put away my pride.

Put away my will.

Put away the stories given to me by damaged people whose stories were given to them by damaged people.

Put away an evil past and make right a glorious today.

Love asks more, never less, of each of us every day.

If we are adults, then it is time to put away our toys in a proper place.

The adults need to find the courage to say no to their children.

No more.

Every society has had an awakening.

It is not unusual for a people, a nation, to realize that their past was a mistake.

To promote, honor, or defend a mistake in the light of truth is an evil act against life.

To roll in lies, to bathe in hate, to inflict pain with words, acts, or symbolically with statues is tyranny.

The tyranny of man against man.

It must stop.

End the Civil War.

Put away the evil past.

Embrace the power of love.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

What You See?

Look over there.  

What you see?  

A woman is walking a dog.  

There is a Starbucks cup on the tree lawn.  

It’s cloudy today.  

Look over there.  

What you see?  

A young black woman is playing with a Hispanic child.  

There’s a delivery at the door.  

A cop grins because he killed some guy.  

Look over there.  

What you see?  

Congress deaf, dumb, and blind.  

Senate deaf, dumb, and blind.  

President mocks humanity. 

Look over there.  

What you see.  

I see fear held so long that it has burned out compassion. 

I see hate so deep that there’s no turning back.  

I see change coming.

Change coming.

A child yells.  

A mother weeps.  

A daddy lost.  

A dream destroyed.  

Look over there.  

What you see?  

Through tears, I see truth setting minds free.  

Through tears, I see justice push back.  

Through tears, I see our hope is here.  

See it?  

It’s right in front of you.  

It’s you.  

You will remake the world.

You.  

You are our hope.  

What you see?  

Peace  

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

The Dark Waters Roll

This is a moral check-up…

How are you doing?

How is the nation doing?

We all find ourselves being asked what our response to injustice is.

Not too long ago, we believed our nation had a moral awakening…

A generation was asked to stop discrimination and segregation and realize that everyone is created equal.

We didn't know what we were asking…

We were pushing for an answer we didn't want.

By asking the question, its aim was to address a long-standing cancer of the American experiment.

For every action, there is a reaction.

Humanity doesn't respond instantly to change.

The reaction came decades later, at the end of segregation and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The reaction?

Recently, we elected an immoral President.

He broke the dam, and all the dark waters that our nation had hidden from consciousness since 1964 have flooded back into everyone's lives.

Reminding us that the dirt on our souls cannot be hidden forever.

This first monster of our own creation was unleashed once again.

Brown children put in cages to destroy the American dream of freedom.

Our legislative House and Senate turn their backs on executive corruption so that they can pack the courts to end women's right to privacy.

Promises of a return to an all-white America where jobs are aplenty for the white land owner, the money piled high, and all that equality BS buried…

Dead.

Dead and buried and good riddance.

Communists!

The conservative, less government, fiscally responsible, Constitutional purist Republican Party led over a cliff by a sociopathic, day-trading, pied piper.

Our intelligence services mocked, and admonitions of collusion with America's enemies, Russia, were ignored.

Everyone can be bought.

You just have to find what they want.

Our President betrays his oath to the Constitution and is impeached.

Yet our courage to stand for justice has run away and hidden behind indifference to truth for political gain. 

This President was not removed.

The dark waters roll…

The dark waters roll...

A plague is unleashed.

One person's nightmare is another person's free lunch.

The virus, like the American President, doesn't know what empathy is.

The virus rolls across the world, piling bodies with a casual efficiency.

As it makes its way across America, we become them.

Them.

Prejudice feeds upon lies that support its belief.

The virus is only a problem for the old, the brown, the black, not white male America-loving Capitalists.

Magical thinking believes that a death toll of 100,000 is the limit and can't it wouldn't go higher.

Can it?

The bodies pile up.

The dark waters roll…

George Floyd was killed by four Minneapolis Police officers in full view, fully recorded.

The third leg of this American sickness steps down onto all our necks.

We are told we didn't see what we saw.

The third monster is unleashed.

The original sin.

The hole in the heart of the Great American Experiment.

Racism.

Mr. Floyd had no idea that day, when he woke up, that he was going to light a nation's sense of justice a fire.

Like so many heroes, he was at the wrong place at the right time.

His life was stolen from him.

Those who murdered him did not understand what they were doing.

They lit the watchfires of our democracy.

From hill to hill.

From the valley to the plain.

From the mountaintop to the ocean, the call went out that our democracy was in danger.

No person's life is in vain.

No one.

George Floyd made a difference in the world.

I wonder what he's thinking about as the world stands up in his name? The call for justice?

The dark waters roll…

The flood has not abated.

We are afloat, you and I, in this uncertain place and time.

I want to give you hope.

For the first time, there are enough of us to row this lifeboat to that blessed shore.

The world hears the cry, "I can't breathe."

We can row this boat ashore.

Our captain is justice.

This dark tide will yell and scream, but it can't stop the journey of the light.

We can all bring justice once and for all.

For all.

We will answer that question posed over 200 years ago.

For once in its entire history, will the many become one?

Listen…

Look...

The waters part, and in the middle walk a free people under the light of justice.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby