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Standing Up For Justice 

Story: standing in whole foods considering buying the chanterelles... a dark haired 40-50 yr old woman comes in, stands next to me, silent for a moment, then precedes to tell me that she was just screamed at in the parking lot by an apparently wealthy, crazy, racist woman, who attacked her Jewish heritage. She told me that no one was in the parking lot that she saw, and this woman came and opened her car door, which crossed the line for her, so she pushed back telling her to get away from her vehicle immediately. The woman kept screaming at her and went behind her car and took a photo of her license plate. As she told me this story my whole body cringed and all I could say is "I'm so sorry that happened to you." She responded with, "See? See what he (Chump) has unleashed?" I asked if I could give her a hug and right there in the produce section, we, two strangers, embraced. Truth be told, if she didn't need a hug I was going to ask for one! Her story went right through me. As we parted and she walked away, I reminded her that there are more of us then them. She agreed. Now, I am thinking about her story and wondering where her support was. WF has a huge parking lot and other stores besides it. The racist woman was yelling at the top of her lungs. It's hard to believe no one heard. If you were there, would you have stepped in? I think I am asking my white friends about this. I want to say that i never grew up describing people by the color of their skin. Never. My grandmother Mattie Poole taught me to love everybody. To be love in action. She did, and was. I am really sad that I have been using the term "white" as of late. Everything in my being knows that we are being called to move away from looking at skin tone, and toward looking deeper into one's character. But today, I find myself using this word, as i believe it is important that those who fall into this category, use there skin tone and their voices and their privilege to help set things right. Would you have stood up for this lovely middle aged woman? Will you stand up for me? I'm envisioning the planet wide awake and coming together to stand for each other. We are the more!