05/30/2020
These recent events are thought provoking and elicit strong emotions. Many are enraged, feeling a sense of dissolution, fatigued over the never-ending events, and still others are terrified. I have felt each one of these emotions repeatedly since I was a boy in the 1960s.
What’s one way we together could start to make a difference? I saw a quote a few days ago that I thought was powerful. What if we all started by saying:
“I see your color and I honor you. I value your input. I will be educated about your lived experiences. I will work against the racism that harms you. You are beautiful. Tell me how to do better.”
It’s a statement we can all learn from because ignorance reaches far and wide-everywhere!
What if we tweaked the quote by changing a couple words… for example, change the word “color” to gender, creed, religion, age, generation, ethnic background or other descriptors. Substitute the word “racism” with bias, ignorance, mean-spirited words, intolerance, elitism, privilege or other words. Wonder what would happen if we all thought in those terms?
Point is we all have to think differently. It only takes a sprinkling of goodness by a few to change the awful discourse of ignorance. That sprinkle could lead to a deluge which in turn builds momentum like a tsunami washing away every ignorance in it’s path.
