No Compromise

No Compromise
By Kevin J. Curtis

Johnny was trying to understand why the people in the United States were always arguing and fighting. It didn’t make sense! They were all just people living in the same big country. Why did they fight all of the time? He decided to talk to his dad about it.

“It’s because somebody is always trying to take our guns away!” shouted Donald, as he finished loading the clip of his 9mm Glock.

“But if nobody had guns,” began Johnny, “we wouldn’t need to have lockdown drills in our school for active shooters!”

“You watch your mouth young man!” shouted Donald. “That kind of talk is dangerous! We need to be able to defend ourselves if someone else pulls a gun on us!”

“But yesterday,” began Johnny, “you pulled a gun on that other car in traffic while driving us home. Nobody pulled a gun on you first.”

“You shut your yap young man,” growled Johnny’s father. “That guy was looking for a slug in his head!”

Johnny decided to ask his mom for help. Maybe she would know why everyone was fighting.

“Well Johnny,” began Amanda, Johnny’s mom, “we treated people with… darker skin horribly for years.”

“I didn’t do any of that!” replied Johnny. “I’m only 10-years-old!”

“Yes,” replied Amanda, “but we are still to blame because of the color of our skin.”

“So,” began Johnny, “is that why when you were so mad at the person who took your parking spot on Tuesday, you apologized when you saw that she was a different color from us?”

“No…” replied Amanda, “yes… well I don’t know. It’s complicated. We need to prove we are better than those other people who are racists.”

“But didn’t you just change your mind because of her race?” asked Johnny.

“No!” answered Amanda. “It’s different! Because of our privileges, we should give back to other groups of people. Like the indigenous people. We should give them back their land.”

“So, are you and dad going to give them our house?” asked Johnny.

“No,” said Amanda. “Not our land, the land they had before.”

“But wasn’t that our land and didn’t it all belong to someone else all those years ago?” asked Johnny.

“Don’t you have something else to do besides ask me a lot of questions?” Amanda shot back? “I think I’m a little smarter about this stuff than you are!”

Wow, thought Johnny. I had no idea the world is so screwed up because of my parents. I think if they thought more about the safety of children instead of carrying guns, we would all be safer. I also think if we didn’t think every disagreement was about skin color, we could all get along better. What am I missing?