Your Brother’s Keeper

I hadn’t planned on doing another op-ed so soon again but ‘stuff’ happens in life and it’s always best to strike in the moment. Out here where I live, we have a very diverse community, it’s rural and spread out and once a month, on the last Saturday of the month our recreational / community center holds a flea market / yard sale event. It’s a great way to get to meet your neighbors and do a one stop yard sale-ing.

So here I am, strolling by the tables, visiting with new and old venders alike and eventually I get to one who is rather unforgettable; last time I was there he was wearing his MAGA hat (made in China) and just as I was about to drop $35 in a silver spoon he had, he made a comment to someone else. I laid the spoon down and walked away. – Part of our so called freedom is about making choices, I made mine.

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This month, I was there again, checking things out when suddenly he pipes up offering free Bibles; that told me which way he swung. No biggy, it takes all kinds to make up this world. At the end of his long stretch of tables stood a couple of color, she was going through a rack of clothing. The items were selling for $2 a piece; she offered him $1 each for all of them. He wouldn’t budge, and I quote, “$2 each. I know what I got and I know where they’re going.” Well, didn’t ‘that’ just say a whole lot.

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You see, we have a lot of Haitian immigrants and they are known for helping their less advantaged countrymen back home. A noble trait. To say the least, I was appalled, and once again turned to walk away when some other white guy laughed and congratulated this cretin. This set me to thinking…

In the biker life we take care of our own, helping where and how we can when a need arises. But I have to ask, just how unconditional are we? Do we limit our charity to only those who wear the same patch? Ride on two? How far does our care go and where do we draw the line? For how long do we look away from something unjust / harmful? – All the way home I was putting my thoughts in order and when I got back I turned on YouTube and found Hollywood of Insane Throttle covering basically the same topic. The force is strong amongst us.

Like everything else we draw our own lines, and often we go with the flow of our set. But what if that flow goes against your grain, what do you do? Are you strong enough to stand up for your beliefs and practices or do you make token gestures to appease the rule? Now, Hollywood’s focus was on his points of interest and mine are elsewhere but they are both the same. There comes a time to show our mettle.

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What did I do? I wanted to call out this low-life on his hypocrisy of being a so called ‘Christian’ yet refusing to be a part of brotherly love because of his racism. Remember, Jesus comes from the middle east so he too, was a man of color to some degree. But I didn’t because I did not want to create something that wouldn’t have turned out well. I finished my round and due to the way the parking lot is designed I found a lovely spot under an oak tree, a short ways behind this man’s sale space – to stand, putting my focus on his back. He is what and who he is, his ripple is part of many and the ‘all’ has a way of balancing things out (or as I’m oft to say,”the gods have a sense of humor and it is perverse).

Ride safe.