First, take a deep breath. Hold it. Hold it. Exhale.
Take a shot of your favorite Mexican tequila, savor it.
Take another shot.
Call your oldest living relative. Could be a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or oldest living cousin; ask them to share their fondest memory of their oldest living relative and also where that person immigrated from. Ask if there was a special tradition from the homeland that they loved most like a dance, children’s song, wedding tradition, or family memory. Then immediately share that memory with your children and try to incorporate it into a yearly ritual to pass down to their families.
Watch Thelma and Louise. Watch Norma Rae. Watch Leauge of Their Own.
Say out loud, “Black lives matter”. Stay silent (don’t confuse it with “All lives matter”, that’s a separate issue). Make it your goal to understand what that really means and why those three words are important. It might take you a minute, it might take you a year, it might take you a lifetime, but the answer is in us all. Stay silent while you think on it. Once you get it, stay silent no more. Tell your spouse, tell your children, tell your neighbors, tell a stranger. Whatever you do, don’t stay silent.
Brush up on Susan B. Anthony and Elenor Roosevelt.
Download Rosetta Stone, and get the Online Family Unlimited version. Recommended languages to start with; Spanish, German, and Chinese.
Go to your local theater and watch “Moonlight”, it was just released.
Go home and rent “Milk”, then google Mathew Sheppard and The Stonewall Riots.
Watch Twelve Years a Slave.
Read The United States Constitution, and take notes to make a screensaver of your favorite part.
Say out loud, “All lives matter”, and then figure out why that is so different from Step 5.
Google and WATCH Lawrence O’Donnell’s MSNBC “This Nation Was Founded on Genocide on Dakota Access” story about the ongoing Naive American fight for Standing Rock.
Call your minister, preacher, rabbi, or priest and ask if they would help you start a monthly cultural exchange with a nearby Islamic mosque and/or Hindu temple.
Watch Crash.
Volunteer at your local sheriff’s office for a weekend.
Download 3 albums and listen to them in order:
1.) Second Helping by Lynard Skynard
2.) Pensamientos by Juan Gabriel
3.) N.W.A. & The Posse by N.W.A.
Buy a globe and put it on your coffee table.
Take an entire day off to read the first 10 page results after a google search for: “the importance of understanding cultural differences in America”.
Call your best friend from childhood and ask them how their day was.
Say The Pledge of Allegiance.
Take your kids to a downtown park and protest something, just for fun, it’s your fundamental right.
Be grateful.
Be nice.
-Ron B. Wilson 11/9/2016
artstyleflow.com 