Caitlin Aussprung

World Literature

Dr. Stel

Response Paper: Protest Section…I have no idea what to say. None. Zero. Zip.

4-24-05

A protest against protests.

The only poem I enjoyed was We Wear the Mask. I relate to that one.

Maybe I am sheltered, maybe I am naïve, maybe all racism is imagined or searched for, maybe people enjoy stirring up trouble.

Maybe people like dreaming, maybe Communism would work in a perfect world, maybe I am desensitized, and maybe I am self-righteous. Maybe nothing is perfect.

But whatever I am, I do not relate to these protests. I do not…understand.

Am I blinded by "society?" Or is society blinded by itself?

My brain shuts off when I hear of racism. The wall goes up. Everyone wants to be an individual. Yet when there is separation, there is conflict.

It could be as simple as that. Or it could go deeper.

I do not wish to be Hitler or to be racist; I simply do not understand where the problem stems from altogether. It is as foreign, as pitiable, as saddening, and as unbelievable as poverty in third-world countries. Of course I know poverty such as that exists. I just do not believe it. It is outside my realm of conception. Even if I were to see it firsthand, I would forget about it after returning home. I still would not believe.

Who really wants to wrap their mind around inhumanity?

America. What holds us together? We have no common ancestor, no common blood, no common features or appearances. What is our mortar? What is our foundation? Is it hunger for freedom? Freedom does not come through selfishness. People strive wrongly. Freedom has always been bought. How horrid is that?

What to say? I have nothing to say.