America The Playground—We Must Take Back the Middle

When I was eleven, we moved from West Virginia to Columbus, Ohio. I brought my culture and my accent with me. Adjusting to the classroom was difficult because my teacher enjoyed making fun of my accent. She would have me repeat words that she considered funny sounding due to my thick accent. The experience was humiliating for a young boy, new to the class, the shortest boy in class, and one of the shyest boys in class. She especially loved the fact that I pronounced jury and jewelry without any phonic difference. She was a bad teacher, and I just adapted. Nearly all my teachers were great, with the exception of one teacher in 7^th grade who was physically and verbally abusive to me and two others in the class; that is another story.

The classroom that year was a fearful place; however, it was nothing compared to the playground. For the first time in my life, I viewed the playground as a field with hidden dangers, optic delusions, and intimidating characters. The playground, I learned, was made up of three different groups of kids. One group was the tight-knit group that had been in school together for years. This group had its own cultural language and was leery of any outsider. Another group was the bullies, known for evil around the world and who occupy every playground on the planet. The bullies were easy to spot because when they moved toward the tether ball or any other playground equipment, the other two groups split to the left and to the right.

I naturally found my way into the third group in just a few days. I was fearful of the bullies and shunned by the tight-knit group, so there was no other group. Our group was made up of outsiders and was from West Virginia, China, and Cuba. We were an odd conglomeration, all with weird accents, and confused by our new surroundings. On the positive side, most of us lived in the same high-rise apartment buildings in town. We played at school and at home.

America is just such a cultural playground today. We are divided into more than three simple groups; however, the three groups from my playground are sufficient constructs for my illustration. The close-knit group has segregated according to race, origin, identity, neighborhood, religion, or some other commonly held mores. The outsider group has gathered primarily for survival against the close-knit group.

The bullies are loud and violent and are no longer grouped together; they have infiltrated every group in America. They have determined they know best for the country, and they will destroy anyone who dares to challenge them. They wear red hats, they wear blue hats, they wear masks, they wear crosses, they wear race, they wear diamonds, and they are active in every level of government. Disrespect, vulgarity, fear, and hate are their language and bizarre is their world. This group is small but growing; they are so loud all other groups sit in fearful silence. Some who have dared to break their silence and have spoken up have been trolled, become the object of viral memes, denigrated, castigated, neutered, accosted at home, at restaurants, and even beaten.

On the playground, the close-knits and the outsiders keep their distance on separate ends of the playground. We are on the right and left, with the bullies occupying our space—the middle. We own the middle ground where civilization, communication, understanding, compromise, diplomacy, respect, and decency exist. Those of us on the left and on the right have far more in common than we think. We are primarily fair-minded people who know that communication, respect, and integrity are needed for the community to survive. We are prevented from coming together for fear of the bullies. If one dares to crossover from right or left to communicate, the bullies will shout RINO, Uncle Tom, —phobic, ignorant, traitor, apostate, and worse.

The battle for the playground that is America is in the middle. The bullies now occupy the middle, and they are growing. It is time for the Left and the Right to shed fear, take courage, and move together to take over the middle where America has lived for decades. If we in the middle, sometimes called moderates, don’t take over the middle, the bullies will win. AND if they win, they will bring an end to what we have called America for decades.

Dr. James D. Allen**

**Not an MD, but it is an earned doctorate. Yes, I must say it, lest the bullies come after me.

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