Thank goodness for this site, it's place i can vent and get stuff off my chest. So if you are easily offended, stop reading now. Seriously, close the thread before i hurt your feelings. As many of you have read, i accepted the role of an administrator of a Facebook page; Sun City Chat Arizona. I had been invited to assist the administrator over a year ago. I declined; too much work, too much controversy and too little appreciation (the least important, i just wanted one more "too"). The reality is, it hasn't been that bad a gig, pretty easy to do with much of the work being eliminated by Facebook's automated processes. The occasional complaints are pretty simple and most of the requests to join are approved because of the questions asked to qualify. Every now and again we get somebody trying to slip in and we quickly shut them down. I had an odd one the other day when a member of the community lodged a complaint against a post from the Sun City Advocates. I say odd because i am also a member of the Advocates, but i quickly removed the post. I don't want a conflict of interest as we try and build a sense of community online amongst the membership. We had added to the rules a comment the goal was to grow the community and avoid the political divide that so often chokes these sites. It was well received and i was encouraged by the consensus opinion to move in that direction. Then yesterday, last night, the shit hit the fan. Worse yet, it was one of my posts that caused it. Yikes. I had posted a photograph of the Sun City Players first performance back in 1960. All of the members were seated on the stage at Community Center (Oakmont), a huge cast and a good number of the performers in black face. I've posted it before and got only mild push back. This time it caused a stir i hadn't expected. One of the officers from the Players apologized for the play some 60 plus years ago and suggested i should have posted some kind of disclaimer (still not sure what that meant). Then it got worse, a poster came up with an ugly meme and a comment i deleted. Then it got still worse and he suggested i was a member of the Proud Boys. Then it really turned ugly. I tried to reason it out, but it felt like the problem was far bigger than i could get my head around. The whole point was the Players were one of the first clubs in Sun City and that clubs were a microcosm of the concept of building a sense of community. Suffice to say, i swung and missed on making my point. I like to argue as much as the next guy, maybe more. Common sense took over and rather than a hopeless back and forth i deleted the post. What was the point? If all i was doing was creating dissension, i was defeating my own rules of engagement. It's pretty clear, there's little room for discussion these days. Too many people are easily offended. Rather than blaming others, i accepted my post was apparently hurtful and yanked it. Tragically, whether the post is there or not racism is still alive and well in this country (think not, look at Buffalo this past weekend and tell me it's getting better). Sadly we have a long way to go and anything we each can personally do to make it better is on us. Live and learn gang, live and learn.
I can go pretty deep into the how's and why's of several of the issues you mentioned above but, as you say, that would only create a back-and-forth discourse that will never get solved. Let's just say that the world we are living in today is vastly different than the one we grew-up in, and just leave it at that! And thank God we don't live forever!
