What do you create? What does it mean to be black? Or to be white? Or pink or red or yellow or tan or even paint ourselves orange?

Color means nothing. The meaning comes from us, from the meanings you accept. From the meanings you believe and hold on to.

We create meaning

You can accept the primitive and even hateful meanings that have drifted into our American culture. America is the melting pot of a rainbow of peoples and traditions. Including every ignorant and ugly aspect of each.

Much of our country was permeated with the evil of slavery. Everything good and decent about Southern culture was dirtied with the stench of that evil. Every man, woman and child that tolerated it, accommodated it or even ignored it was soiled. And many perpetuated it, forced them to spend their lives working, raped, bullied and beat their captured humans.

You can even pretend those meanings are real or true, that they were justified. But they were not. You can pretend it’s okay to call someone the N-word. But it’s not. There’s no goodness, badness or okay-ness in a word. We create that. And to most of us, that word in that use is evil. If you use the word, you’re creating evil.

Our cultural and traditional meanings aren’t true. You and I are be responsible for creating our meaningful world, for saying what’s true. You and I can say “those were superstitions and we no longer believe them.” Or we can give our efforts to perpetuate them.

This is your God-given power, your choice. You can create goodness. Or you can create evil.

What do YOU say?

Don’t pretend one meaning is right and another is wrong. Some people feel one way and some feel another. Those are just feelings. Whatever your feelings, you have the power to say which meanings you air and spread.

Give your energy to goodness

You have the power to devote your creative force to goodness, to kindness, to love. And you have the power to devote your energies to anger, domination. You can be humble, or full of pride, making others wrong, claiming your righteous. Every moment, you choose.

Donald Trump enrages his audience. He reminds us how good it feels to fight, jeer and hurt others. He reminds us of the petty power we felt when we were four years old. He promised to defend people who attack others and violate the law. He maligns those who criticize him, who points out his foibles. He even disagrees with the constitution and says they don’t have the right to speak. He generates hate in his followers, and generates a lot of hate in those who oppose him.