There is a current advertisement in the Jacksonville area for an automobile dealership which sells luxury cars that really bothers me.

In it they say things like “you’re not like the others” and you’re a rock star’ who deserves the best.

They seemingly are pandering to a customer who is wealthy by implying they are better than others of lesser means.

It reminded me of something my parents as well as their country club friends often said about people who they felt for one reason or another were lesser than they were either financially, or of certain religions or nationalities which was “they’re not our kind of people”.

I came to believe such people use that blanket term so they can seem to others that they weren’t being overtly bigoted or discriminatory.

In my parents’ case in particular, they had no justification in judging the worthiness of others. My father was an alcoholic who raped and molested his daughters and beat and berated his son.

For my mothers’ part, she was a manipulator who used people and defrauded the IRS while turning a blind eye to what was happening to her children and who throughout her life tried at all costs to keep the family’s dirty secrets safe.

And while they often judged people of lesser means, truth be told, they lived well beyond their means and at one point had to declare bankruptcy.

It seems to me that at a basic level no one is better than another simply because of their financial status, race, religion, sexual orientation, job status or nationality.

After all, the term mankind does not discriminate. We are all children of God and designed in his likeness.

Fortunately for me, I learned this early on in my life so as to see the wrongs in my parents’ statements.

Both my older sister and I were expelled from catholic school at a young age for not conforming to their edicts and then placed in public schools in New Jersey and later in New York where we had classmates from all walks of life. As such we found that in the end we had so much more in common with our classmates than we had previously been led to believe we would.

It makes me feel sorry for those who live amongst and go to school with only those who are of the same culture and financial status and constantly told they are better than others.

Sadly, we are living in a time in our country where many of our leaders and pundits are trying to divide us and turn us against our neighbors either due to nationality, religious beliefs, race, sexual orientation and/or political affiliation.

As I see it, the only way we are going to survive as a society as to start looking at our neighbors as simply a representation of mankind in it’s fullness and beauty and to love one another despite any differences we might have and to fully embrace the term “yes they are our kind of people”.

Thanks for checking in this week and if you like what I have to say please pass it along. Paul