Category Archives: Really America?

“All Cops Aren’t Bad…Just The A**holes.”

“The problem with a lot of the statements/comments I’ve read lately regarding police officers, federal agents, private security employees and various other areas of employment involving ‘positions of power’ is that they’re ‘blanket statements’. Too often people are so quick to say ‘All cops are bad’. Unfortunately blanket statements are used in all types of situations these days, especially via social media…where an image/video can spread like wildfire before the truth of the event actually unfolds.”

“I try to avoid making these types of statements because I’ve traveled the world and have had the opportunity to meet different types of people of various races, religions and backgrounds. I’ve learned not to assume that the attitude, negativity and bad behavior I receive from one person will be the same attitude, negativity and bad behavior I’ll receive from other people of that same race, religion or background. In other words, what people look like and what they do for a living doesn’t amount to the type of person they are. The type of person they are is determined by exactly that…the type of person they are. Some of my dearest friends are police officers, security guards, federal agents, and bouncers. They’re not racist, bigots, biased or violent people. They’re confronted every day with situations that test their will, resolve, patience and survival, yet they behave in a manner which coincides with their character. They’re not good people because they’re cops, agents, or security. They’re simply good people who happen to be in those jobs.”

“The men in the video below for example are, for lack of a more politically correct word, a**holes. Again, I don’t know the logistics of the situation, I’m simply making an assumption due to what I’m seeing in this video. Could they be two great cops that are treating the cameraman in this manner because the cameraman is a scumbag they know from ‘around the way’? Sure. Could they be two cool dudes that were just told to act this way by their overbearing superior? Yes. If they are in fact just a**holes however, they’re not a**holes because they’re cops, they’re simply a**holes who happen to BE cops. If they were teachers, farmers, construction workers, or McDonald’s fry-guys, they’d probably STILL be a**holes.”

(Click to watch video via YouTube)

(Click to watch video via YouTube)

“Of course, there will be those of you that disagree with me. Like I said, everyone has had different experiences in their lives and everyone is different than I am, thus everyone won’t think the same way that I do…some people just hate uniformed individuals. There will be those of you that say having a gun, a badge, a siren and the daily duty of dealing with criminals MAKES you an a**hole…but this is an observation I won’t agree with. I was a bouncer for years in NYC. Did I talk a little more trash because I knew the nightclub or my fellow boys in black would back me up? Sure. Did I expect to get to the front of the line at certain spots because of who I was and who I worked for? Of course. But deep down inside I was the person that I was, with the responsible mindset and moral integrity that I had. I never beat someone to within an inch of their lives or worse because I could get away with it, because deep down inside I simply wasn’t the typer of person that would do that…regardless of the power behind my position of authority.”

“I know my words here won’t be world-changing. My thoughts on this matter should be taken simply as they are…my thoughts on this matter. If you’re the type of open-minded person that might learn a thing or two from people other than yourself however, here’s the one seed I’d like to plant: take people for WHO they are, HOW they act and WHAT they do. Exterior appearances can be deceiving. They can lead you to believe something untrue about someone. They can also cause you to miss out on knowing some of the best people on this earth.”

“Try not to see your fellow humans as the clothes they wear, the jobs they have, the car they drive or the entity they pray to…try to see them for who they really are.”

  • F

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Filed under Controversy...Ya Gotta Love It, Globetrotting, Really America?, The Good In Mankind

“Perhaps One Day Things Will Be Different…REALLY Different.”

“Some people say racism in this country is a thing of the past. They say that ‘all men are created equal’ and that the signing of bills and the passing of laws 50 years ago has kept it that way.”

“Others say that racism is alive and well. They say that blacks are still looked down upon by whites and that things will never change. They say the recent events in NYC (let alone the rest of the country) speak for themselves; those events being (but not limited to) a white officer killing a black man by choke hold during what appeared to be a non-threatening situation, and two officers being assassinated by another black man as revenge for the first incident.”

“I try to hide my eyes from stories such as these. I try to pretend that it’s simply a ‘cops vs the bad guys’ scenario and keep to myself. I try to remember what it was like growing up as a mixed-race kid, being accepted by everyone I knew because although I was a different skin color, I was still a pleasant human being. The only problem is that doesn’t work because I wasn’t raised in the United States of America...”

“Things are different here.”

“They are obviously not how they were in years past, but they are still nowhere near as good as they could be. I still hear stories of black on white / white on black crime, initiated simply because someone was black or white. I still feel uneasy feelings during certain instances in my life…instances caused simply by me being ‘not white’.”

“I still find newly-carved swastikas every now and then, such as this one that popped up overnight on the same bench I sit on every day waiting for my 6 train ride home.”


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“Perhaps one day things will be different…REALLY different. Perhaps one day black and white, 
Jew and Gentile, male and female will all be considered equal…TRULY equal.”

“And perhaps I’ll still be alive to see it…”

– F

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Filed under Hear Me Roar, New York City, Really America?, This...I Just Don't Get

“Americans Need Help Too…”

Everyday on the news we hear about millions of people who are homeless and starving in cities and countries other than our own. We hear about places we can drop off used clothing items, addresses we can mail money orders and websites we can donate to. We hear about hungry children, broken homes and abandoned family members.

(photo: Fidel Amos)

(photo: Fidel Amos)

But how can we help any of those people in any of those cities in any of those countries…when we can’t even help ourselves?

– F

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Filed under Blog Quickies, Hear Me Roar, Really America?

“There Has To Be A Way…”

The United States of America. I love this country, I love another country as well because I grew up there and consider it home, but having lived here the last 20 years or so makes makes me as American as I am Italian (as does the combination of my American father and my Italian mother). One thing that I’ve seen, in the USA as well as Italy, is the ever-increasing number of homeless on the streets. I feel a certain pain inside my soul when I see someone in those conditions, not because I don’t want to help, but because I can’t help…at least, not by myself. Although this is a beautiful country we live in, we can’t seem to find a way to take care of our own citizens…let alone anyone else’s.

There has to be a way to come together as a whole. There has to be a way to provide food, shelter and decent living conditions to the civilians of this great nation…especially to its veterans, who have fought tooth and nail for it. I know that it’s possible. I know because I have been around the world, and I’ve seen the good that mankind (and womankind) can do. I know because while in Union Square here in NYC one day, I saw a man approach another man. They didn’t know one another as far as I could tell. They had only the shirts on their backs and the bags in their hands. But when one asked another if he could have a cigarette, a cigarette is what he got…no questions asked.

If two people who have nothing can give to each other, why can’t we all..?

(photo: Fidel Amos)

(photo: Fidel Amos)

-F

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Filed under Blog Quickies, Hear Me Roar, New York City, Really America?, The Good In Mankind

The President: “To Respect Or Not To Respect?”

Well ladies and gentlemen, the hour is upon us.

In just a few weeks our country will be voting on its next President. I promised myself I wouldn’t begin writing on this particular subject matter…mostly because I think it’s a controversial topic of discussion, quick to pit friends and family members against one another and I hardly have the desire or time to argue with my readers. The other reason I have for not wanting to open the proverbial “can of worms” that is political conversations is the simple fact that there are hundreds of issues to discuss regarding politics. There are multiple candidates to choose from, numerous positions and stands that each of them represents, bills and laws to concur with that each of them may or may not pass…not to mention the moral, religious, economical, judiciary and scholastic views they represent.

…but I digress.

One area of the political world I would like to quickly rant on is the bad-mouthing, poo-flinging and general disrespect I constantly see hurled in the direction of the office of the President of this country. I remember when the title of Commander In Chief deserved a salute or a handshake, regardless of one’s political opinion or vote. I remember when this country used to respect the office of the President of the United States simply because it was what it was.

Now we have millionaire, attention-hungry windbags like Donald Trump throwing money at it like it’s a street whore.

I’m not saying that I’m a fan (or not) of our current President, or even the one before him. (As I mentioned earlier, I’ll keep who I did and didn’t vote for to myself…no arguments for me today) It just seems to me that all we ever do as Americans now is curse the President, talk about him on television, berate him with signs in our front yards and now publicly offer him money to do something just because we feel it should be done. Perhaps it’s my “old school” way of thinking, but the President is not some “friend of ours”. He’s not some clown who’s paid to be laughed at. He’s not some showgirl or pole-dancer on a platform showing skin for dollars.

He’s the President.

It’s true we can think what we want about him as obviously not all of us voted for him, but when we start to do these “public finger-pointing sessions” I have to admit it really breaks my heart as an American. I can’t imagine someone calling their boss (or their spouse’s boss) names on Facebook. I can’t imagine someone calling their parents (or their friend’s parents) something other than sir or m’am in public. I can’t imagine someone trash-talking a general, veteran or Supreme Court judge to their faces. Why? Because I believe their title earns them a certain amount of respect publicly regardless of how they may feel about them privately. Yet, the leader of our country, the one person we as American should at least treat like a human being when we come across him…gets spit on metaphorically and belittled verbally as if he were our worst enemy.

It’s sad, pathetic and I’m vehemently opposed to it.

We should know better than that America…and we should be ashamed of ourselves.

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Filed under Controversy...Ya Gotta Love It, Hear Me Roar, Really America?, This...I Just Don't Get