By Charles Thomas
Guest Columnist
They call me a libtard simply because I care about other people. They call me a libtard as a way of putting me down because I feel for the fate of others. I have seen and read all the incendiary remarks targeting anyone who professes the idea that they may possess a caring heart for someone born into a situation less fortunate than the place that I find myself in.
It was not always like that in my life, as I too grew up in pre-adolescent difficult times. Times in which my school teachers in elementary school banded together to purchase winter coats for myself and my brothers. Over a half a century later, we still converse about that and reminisce about that act of kindness and caring those teachers directed our way.
Those who point fingers of negativity regarding people they feel comprise the lesser of us, please understand that no act of kindness is ever left in the dustbin of history, they remain with you forever. To the living relatives of those teachers, understand that we remember all of them.
Perhaps it is that history that has moved me into being a libtard because I know the pain some endure every day. Devastation comes to all of us at some point in our lives. Some live with it every day, while others are confronted with it like a thief in the night, suddenly and deadly as we have recently seen. Just as some deal with devastation through no fault of their own , so do others as they flee environments filled with devastation of another kind.
In my many trips to South Florida, I observed so many non-English speaking people working from sun up to sun down doing lawn maintenance in 90-degree heat with headscarves and masks, with the only thing visible showing was their eyes with the body completely covered to protect from the sun’s rays and the cut brush. In all that heat, I wondered how they did that every day, but it reminded me of when I would go with my father during the winter months to shovel coal in the basement of those old downtown buildings.
So when I hear people demonize those that feel a need to walk hundreds of miles to get to a place where they know half the people will despise them, the libtard in me comes out, and I wonder just how strong the binds are that hold them to what they call Christianity and “if not for the grace of god, there go I.”
I know what most of you will say when confronted with this dilemma, “I just want them to come the right way,” and with that I am going to repeat something that I read a while back.
The “right way” is said by people who have never faced true desperation. The “right way” is a term used by someone who has never had to deal with the feeling of hopelessness. The “right way” is what people say when people don’t want someone else to have what they have simply because they were fortunate in where they were born.
It’s easier to believe that people longing for a better existence are just people looking to rob, steal and murder their way across America because that allows you to continue to have a villain that you can always point for any ills you may encounter in life.
So yes, I am a libtard, and I wear that badge proudly because it says to the world that I want you to have food to eat, medical care, financial means in your elder years and a coat like I was given so many years ago when I was cold.
Charles Thomas lives in Lima. His column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Lima News editorial board or AIM Media, owner of The Lima News.
