Thursday, July 14, 2016

It Isn't Okay

I have spent almost 10 days trying to put all of my thoughts into words and, for one of the few times in my life, even the Oxford English Dictionary seems to have failed me. I still feel compelled to say something, though, so here goes.

When I was little, my two dreams in life were to be either a lawyer or a diplomat. I appeared to be pretty well-suited to either of these jobs; as anyone reading this knows, I love to argue and I never, ever shut up. I also have what a therapist once told me is "an uncanny ability to take myself out of any situation, to examine it from all angles, and then assess all solutions as a third party, even when I am directly involved." In short, I'm an empath, which means that I don't just acknowledge other people's feeling or points of view; I actually feel them myself and I am so open-minded that I can see almost any situation from any point of view, even if it is one that I personally loathe.

This is both a blessing and a curse.

I grew up in the Northeast -- New Hampshire, specifically -- and it wasn't until I went to college that I realized how fortunate I had been to attend the most diverse high school in the state. I'm a white, middle-class woman, but I was blessed to grow up in a multicultural city with exposure to people of all types of identities, races and creeds. I was also lucky enough to have picked up, through a wide group of family and friends, the view that all people are the same and, as such, are born with an inalienable right to dignity, compassion,empathy and respect. It wasn't until I was firmly ensconced in a New England, land-grant university that I realized that my exposure to people of other colors, nationalities, economic status, orientations and religions was vastly different than many of my classmates, some of whom had never interacted with a black person in anything other than a passerby capacity.

For that, I am forever thankful.

I have been oddly quiet for the past 10 days because, quite frankly, I don't know what to say. The state of the country at this point in time is both horrifying and sadly predictable. It seems that a week doesn't pass that we aren't inundated with news reports of murder, both of the mass and individual kind. My "feelings" well is almost at capacity from it. Sick, sad, scared, mystified, confused, guilty -- all of these are words that describe some of my emotions. There are two words, though, that seem to have stood out.

Anger is one; resolve is the other.

Don't get me wrong -- just because I have been quiet, just because I have not posted, just because I have not engaged people on my facebook feed just yet -- do not think that I am not angry. Because I am, in fact, seething mad.

Mad that fellow human beings are *still* being denied basic human rights.

Mad that people who I know, love and respect have chosen to turn a blind eye to that fact.

Mad that there are people who refuse to admit that black people and gay people and Muslim people (to name a few) are treated differently by society, and believe that there is not an endemic, inherent issue with race and homophobia in this great country that was founded on freedom of religion and the backs of Native Americans and African slaves.

Mad that there are people who can't see that these aren't just abstract, random strangers in the news; that they can't see these are our neighbors, these are friends, these are colleagues -- THESE ARE FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS, DAMN IT -- and that they need our help.

I find it ironic that the Hashtag Activists have drawn such a stark division between Black and Blue -- the colors we use to describe a bruise, the remnants and reminders that linger far after the initial injury has passed. Part of my hesitation to say something has been because I didn't want to get into "The Police Debate." I respect and acknowledge the profession of police officers, and I still don't have words for the amount of thanks I give for the sacrifice that they and their families and loved ones make to keep this country and our communities safe. I really, truly acknowledge that as well as the fear, uncertainty and downright danger that they feel and put themselves in the way of each and every day. Their lives and their jobs do matter.

The issue is that the majority of Americans, regardless of their color, don't need a reminder of that.

We do, unfortunately, need a reminder that Black Lives Matter. And Muslim Lives Matter, and Gay Lives Matter, and the lives of any actually oppressed population matter. Because when it isn't "our" lives (which do, in fact, matter), we tend not to care.

As I mentioned above, I am an empath -- and while that has its own unique set of problems, it also has its own set of benefits. For example, it is nearly impossible for me to view the world in black or white; I only see it in varied shades of grey. I don't think that anyone is inherently good or inherently evil. I take issue with the idea of "all." "All blacks." "All whites." "All police." "All Muslims." I didn't understand the concept of "all" at the age of five and I still don't understand, aside from the fact that we "all" have people who love us and we "all" need love and we "all" are products of our environments.

And we "all" can get past those environments if we want to.

Because of this, I believe that recognizing institutional racism and respecting our police officers are not mutually exclusive concepts. It *is* possible to do both. The answer is to eschew the concept of "all" and embrace the concept of "most."

For example: "Most" black people are not criminals, just like "most" police officers are not bad, "most" Muslims are not terrorists, "most" gay people are not perverts, "most" white people are not rich old men and "most" Christians are not members of the KKK.

And unless I'm mistaken, every single drop of needlessly spilled blood is the same color.

As I have tried to make clear from the beginning, I don't know the answer to all the world's problems, and I certainly don't have the words to articulate all of my thoughts. All I know is that I needed to and resolved myself to say something, and send it out into the ether, probably to fall upon deaf ears but hopefully to fall upon some. At this point, that's all that I can ask.

That, and send encouragement to those of you who also have words, and who feel the need to do the same.

No comments:

Post a Comment