Ignorance Defined

In the movie Coal Miner's Daughter, Moody Lynn describes his wife, famed country singer Loretta Lynn, as "ignorant".  In his case, he used the term in both the pejorative way and the literal way.  Loretta had lived a life of poverty and ignorance of the ways of the world.  She wasn't stupid.  She just didn't know things that others outside of the hills and hollers of Kentucky knew.

These days, if someone calls you ignorant, you can bet they mean that you are stupid...dumb...unable to comprehend even the most obvious things.  The literal meaning of the word, however, has to do with lack of knowledge and experience...simply not knowing.  I like that definition better.  If you were to plunk me down in the middle of a roomful of computer programmers, I would be lost...ignorant.  I don't know the jargon.  I wouldn't have a clue what to say or even how to act, even though I'm not stupid.  Put me in a roomful of educators, however, and I would get it.  I would know most of the lingo (although I've been retired for nine years now, and things do change).  Still, I have experience and understanding for the latter that I do not have for the former.  Make sense?

Having said that, I was in shock this past week when I saw online videos of two women in two separate incidents in two separate places in the country being attacked/intimidated by white males--one because she was wearing a shirt that had Puerto Rico on it, and the other for no reason at all except that she was a woman of color.  She was sitting all by herself at a table outside of an establishment, quietly reading.  Alcohol was quite obviously involved in the first case...and maybe the second.  Still...

In the first case, the woman with the Puerto Rico shirt had arrived at a park shelter in Chicago--a shelter she had reserved by paying a fee--and was waiting for her family to arrive to celebrate her birthday in the park.  A man nearby took umbrage at the fact that she was wearing a shirt that represented the Puerto Rican flag.  He gave her a hard time about wearing it in America...as if she had no right to do so, as if she weren't an American citizen.  (Sooo many people, including our president, Donald Trump, seem not to understand that the people of Puerto Rico are American citizens!)  He got alarmingly close to her in a way that seemed threatening.  All the while, within sight and earshot, was a police officer outside of his vehicle that had ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) written on the side.  (I'm somewhat curious about why that officer was there, to begin with.  Did he think he was going to grab some illegals at a Puerto Rico birthday party?  I'd still like to know.)  In spite of at least three or four requests from the woman to the officer that the offending man be removed from her presence, the officer did absolutely nothing.  It's all on video.

In the second instance, an African-American woman was sitting, all alone, at a table outside an establishment, reading something.  A man came at her, swinging what looked like a piece of metal pipe.  No provocation whatsoever.  He came very close to hitting her.  The only thing that saved her was the action of another person on the premises who moved in and backed the dude down.  I'm not sure the police were called on this one.  I just know that the poor woman just packed up her stuff and left.  (Need to research this one a bit more.)

As ridiculous as this sounds, these incidents cut me to the core--not because of the obvious display of ignorant racism.  Neither of these men knew the women they were attacking.  Also not because they were (probably) both drunk, because people do stupid/ignorant things when their inhibitions are removed by booze.  What bothered me the most was the fact that both of the men in question weren't gang bangers...weren't thug kids...weren't arrogant young know-it-alls.  They were old folks, like me.
They were Baby Boomers...men who were raised in the same generation as I, having been through the same experiences in society as Baby Boomers.  We survived (translate: lived through) the assassination of President Kennedy, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, Malcomb X, and Martin Luther King.  We got through the Kent State University massacre; the Vietnam War with all of the protests nationwide; the resignation of President Richard Nixon.  We endured the integration of schools in the south amid anger and hatred.  We went through the freedom marches, with MLK, Rosa Parks, and the church bombings and senseless racial murders.  I THOUGHT we Baby Boomers had been through enough together that we at least agreed that life is too precious to risk it by acting ignorantly.  I was wrong.

I don't like to be wrong.
I have no clue what particular burr was under their bonnets to make those guys behave like idiots.
The guy at the park has now been charged with two felony counts of hate crimes, and the policeman on location has resigned.
I'm not sure what happened with the other incident.
I'm willing to bet that nothing will come of it beyond what has already happened.  No one was hurt, in either case.  The first guy had a history with police, which means they probably think he's harmless, even when drunk.  That, of course, doesn't help the young woman who felt threatened.

I feel threatened, too.
Do NOT remove my sense of security in being an American in America.
Do NOT pretend that your "rights" in this great country of ours usurp the rights of others.
Do NOT show yourself to be ignorant of what is good and right by pretending that you are a Christian (if you do) and still behave like a heathen.

People who do this kind of thing are as ignorant as the people who crucified Jesus.  They followed the crowd and listened to the wrong voices in their ears.  At his death, Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."  He had more forgiveness than I do.  Jurisprudence says "Ignorance is no excuse of the law".  I just want it all to stop!!