For reference, day 8 is referring to September 27, 2022.
I have so many thoughts at the moment. I don’t know whether that’s due to sleep deprivation or the fact that I am now sick, too, caught whatever Mom got from sharing a bed and probably not covering her mouth when she coughed around me. I feel like shit. My nose is stuffy, my voice is hoarse and at times, gone, and I’m coughing like there’s no tomorrow.
I’ve also been getting next to no sleep with mom blasting YouTube all night long while unconsciously snatching the covers, leaving me with nothing, and snoring so loud and I mean loud. I think my sleep at night has been more like catnaps – waking up every so often like someone’s anticipating the alarm to ring.
This morning, I woke up in the worst motel room imaginable, my hair and body reek of cigarette smoke and marijuana. I felt a bit better, not coughing as much. Mom was quite the opposite. She looked like she’s going to cough out a lung. That’s the last time I will ever share a bed.
At 9:30 AM, we arrived in the heart of Philadelphia, PA – the city of Brotherly Love. The traffic felt absolutely chaotic. The moment we got off the Ben Franklin bridge, we saw people walking in the middle of the road, among cars!
Aren’t they afraid of being hit? It is a highway after all.
After parking the car in the lot next to the hotel, we made our way around the city – first to Chinatown and then to Independence Hall.
I have never been to Independence Hall nor seen the Liberty Bell in person, only in movies. So I was excited to expand my knowledge of U.S. History.
Or so I thought…
Mom rushed me from one display to the next without ever allowing me to read the text. I told her to hold on and wait for me a few times but her answer was always, “there’s nothing to see here.” She said Independence Hall has changed drastically since her last visit which was 24 years ago. She said the history placards have been rewritten by the recent presidents to make the history of the Founding Fathers skew toward the institution of slavery.
To be honest, from the texts I managed to read, I did not see any skewing and biases toward African American. Sure, history is always told from one perspective and that perspective isn’t always right but that’s just what history is, isn’t it?
This is Another Story 
Bravo for soldering on despite being sick. Sending you healing thoughts and prayers
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Thank you.
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Take care.
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I’m curious what the “skewing” would have been? Acknowledging that the founding fathers had slaves? That would technically be true, and it’s important to tell all sides of history, even if it makes one feel uncomfortable.
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She felt there was too much emphasis on slavery and that people should stop bringing that up. She felt this over-emphasis on this particular subject is a form of complaining. “Stop complaining,” I remember she told her friend over the phone when her friend asked about our visit to Independence Hall. “They need to stop talking about slavery and the injustice of African Americans. There’s already a black president, what’s there to feel injustice about?”
Honestly, I feel like she had misunderstood the entire thing. Slavery and Civil Rights are parts of US History and it deserve to be preserved in history and it deserve to be brought up because otherwise, we won’t know all the sacrifices the previous generations made so we can be free in the world today.
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Ouch! Are they still friends after that?? Boy is she misinformed if she thinks having a Black president changed anything. If anything it revealed how racist America still is. Just look at the guy who came after him. All parts of history should be told so we’re not doomed to repeat it. Might be too late to convince mom of that but at least you understand 😃 ❤️
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Well, her friends are the same way. She’s a big fan of that guy, by the way, and will listen to anything he say. To be honest, I also think she’s a bit racist because she’s always had a problem with the types of friends I made like Vietnamese, Peruvian, Mexican. She didn’t like them, not because they were bad but because of the country they’re from. That frustrated me a lot because personally, I don’t care where you’re from, as long as you’re nice to me and don’t try to change me, I’ll be your friend.
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Oh no! She’s a Trumper! I guess I assumed the friend was Black because if that were me I definitely would be questioning our entire friendship. I’ll try not to be offended. 🙃 I’m like you, I try to be friends with everyone. As long as you’re nice and understanding.
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No, all her friends are Chinese. I think there are good and bad to everyone and no one should be look up to as a God (that’s how my mom sees Trump), well other than Jesus. I don’t see myself as for one side or another. I just try to see both sides of the issue and try to do what’s right.
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Yeah, that seems to be common among a lot of his supporters, which is concerning. But I’ve made the conscious decision to avoid politics because it did a number on my mental health in 2020, and that’s not something I want to repeat.
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I try to avoid politics, too, because it’s destructive and I had a bad incident – politics related – when I was a child. I think it’s okay to be curious to know how government works but it’s best to do it from a history perspective.
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