Yes, we do drink deeply from wells of liberty and opportunity that we did not dig. We do owe a debt that we can’t pay back but must pay forward. We are the result of a grand conspiracy of love.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I should do more experimenting with my own truth. In a free market, we vote every day with our dollars, but I had never asked questions about where the things I bought came from, and what I was actually endorsing with my dollars. The more I became aware of those choices, the more I wanted to align my choices with my values.
America is materially rich yet simultaneously has too much material poverty. What made this and other negative conditions persist, he believed, was an insidious poverty of understanding, a poverty of empathy. People’s inability to see what is going on in the lives of their fellow citizens, to understand what so many Americans endure, creates an atmosphere that allows injustice to fester and proliferate.
What we need now, more than anything else, are people who are willing to do the difficult work of bridging gaps and healing wounds, people in our communities who can rally others together, across lines of division, for the greater good, people who reject cynicism and winner-take-all politics, and instead embrace the more difficult work this generation now faces: to unite our country in common cause.
Most people don’t realize that one shooting like this – barely mentioned in the newspaper – has ramifications far beyond what most people can imagine. It not only shatters a few lives but damages the larger ecosystem in which we live, having impacts on dozens of lives, if not hundreds or thousands.
Deterrents properly placed can help. But that is not enough. We are one society, and as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, what we will have to repent for is not the “vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people,” but the “appalling silence and indifference of the good people.
There are two ways to go through life, as a thermometer or a thermostat. Don’t be a thermometer, just reflecting what’s around you, going up or down with your surroundings. Be a thermostat and set the temperature.
In the end, it is up to us to instruct, inspire, and encourage one another by what we do and how we live. We must all, in this sense, be activists. If we want more connection, we must work harder to connect with others. If we want more unity, we must work to be uniters. If we want more leadership, then we must lead. The most profound changes in our country have come when individuals joined with other individuals in the stubborn belief that they could make change.
When fear becomes the norm, it stalks your life relentlessly, lurking and casting shadows over your daily routine. Fear changes you. Fear changes us. My parents worried about me, but they never had to deal with an every-present fear that violence could erupt at any moment and consume their child in an instant, affecting him or her in ways that no hug or loving assurance could heal.
But my family also insisted that personal ethic must be seamlessly bound with a larger communal ethic, a sense of connectedness: a recognition that we are all a part of something and have reaped the benefits of the struggles waged by those who had an unwavering commitment to the common good.
Ask yourself what would you do if you could not fail. If you knew for sure you would be successful, what would you do? Who would you be, how would you behave, how would you feel, how would you serve? Answer that question. Feel that. Act like that. And even if you do fail, I promise you that you will be better for it – wiser, stronger, and more capable.
It often seemed like when it came to criminal justice expenditures – just as is the case in infrastructure development, early childhood education, and countless other areas – our society would much rather pay an obscene amount of money on the back end of a problem than pay a relatively small amount up front on evidence based programs that would prevent the problem from happening in the first place.
Many people don’t realize that police can’t stop anyone they want just because of a generalized suspicion. There are clear legal standards. Officers may briefly detain a person for investigative purposes only if the officer has “reasonable suspicion” that criminal activity is occurring. Reasonable suspicion is a step below the “probable cause” necessary for an arrest. “Reasonable suspicion” requires more than being in a high-crime area or acting furtive in front of police.
Standing out there on the street, I realized that every person nearby – children, seniors, hardworking parents, and, yes, buyers, sellers, and users – was my neighbor. In major world religions, there is no commandment more fundamental than to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Now I was being challenged to manifest that love: this was a test of my love, of my vision. The world you see outside of you is a reflection of what you have inside of you.
Her whole conception of our interconnected natural environment gave her clarity to see that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere – and to reach out to others is very much in one’s own self-interest. The transformation that occurs isn’t limited to the person who is “helped.” Instead, all involved are helped. All are transformed.
This is a question, to go together or go alone, that each of us has to answer. The destiny of our country will surely depend on how many of us choose to join forces and fight the battles of our time, side by side. Cynicism about America’s current state of affairs is ultimately a form of surrender; a toxic state of mind the perpetuates the notion that we don’t have the power to make a difference, that things will never change. This idea is not only wrong, it is dangerous.
Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.
I spoke of our need for each other, how we are each other’s hope, how when we come together we are strong. How we know that if there is no enemy within, the enemy without can do us no harm. And the enemy within is indifference. It is apathy. It is convictions without courage and ideals without action. It is division. For we know that where there is unity, there is strength.
You can’t have hope without despair, because hope is a response. Hope is the active conviction that despair will never have the last word.
My father taught me early in my life that attitude is a conscious choice; it is a currency available even to those with no access to money. No matter what the circumstances, you exercise your power, you demonstrate your worth, when you decide how to act and react in the face of it all. If the world punches you in the gut, that doesn’t define you; it’s what you do next that speaks your truth.