We are living in such an interesting, stunning era. If I were writing a plot that mirrored all that’s happening in our world today, my novel readers would declare it unbelievable.
How ironic that yesterday, on the same day the first African-American leader of the free world gave a moving farewell presidential address, a self-proclaimed white supremacist was sentenced to death for unapologetically murdering nine fellow Americans, because their skin happened to have more melanin than his. How sad that this was more than a mere piece of commercial fiction.
I didn’t fully grapple with those contrasting truths yesterday, because it was also my birthday, and I chose celebration over consternation. However, reading social media comments and opinions of all kinds in the aftermath has left me wondering what, if anything, can bridge the divide between the “two Americas” in which we’re increasingly and swiftly living.
Forced policies can’t fix this. Nor can guilt, or pretending like our humanity isn’t teetering on the edge of a cliff. It is, and there’s no rope to catch us.
What is left, then, is the most basic and beautiful of freedoms we have: our freedom to choose who and what we want to be; where and with whom we’ll stand, and what role our existence will play in a present that will someday become our history.
It is an individual decision to extend respect (or not) and decency (or not) to every human being. We don’t all have to agree, or look alike, or think alike or even like each other. But we can decide to just be decent, and for our own sakes, to just be kind.
A heart filled with hate is like a bitter stream that slowly and subtly poisons a river. What flows from your heart shapes who you become.
This choice we each must make isn’t about politics; it is about humanity. If we don’t honor it, preserve it and protect it, we’ll lose it - not only for ourselves, but for everyone around the world who is watching us, and for the eyes that meet us across the dinner table, at bedtime tuck-ins, in friendship and in love. They are trusting us to do right by them.
A better way forward will require effort - the kind that isn’t easy or comfortable. But wouldn’t you say our nation - our very existence - is worth it?
The best and only place to start is with you - pointing a judgmental finger at yourself before turning it toward anyone else. Are you bringing your best self to the table? Speaking up when you hear or see something wrong? Being an advocate or ally for someone different from you, rather than staying silent because it’s easier to keep the peace or to fit in?
Peer past your personal anger and your personal fears. Admit to selfishness (we all are, in some way); then deliberately step outside of it and reach across the divide. Only you can determine what that “reach” will require and how far you’re willing to go; but know that whatever measure you choose, it matters. Desperately. For the hand you reach toward, whether friend or foe, is simply another creation of God, trying to find his or her way in the world. Use that truth to soften your stance, and to propel you forward, if nothing else can.
Then take steps to understand the world beyond your own safe space. Not because you’re forced to, but because it’s a privilege to try and understand how we are all in some way connected; how we are each a proverbial, unique ripple that can’t make an ocean wave without the other ripples in our sphere.
Start by asking questions. Read and grow. Author Jodi Picoult’s novel Small Great Things should be mandatory reading if you want to understand the cultural and racial divide in this country in a way that humanizes people for being people. So is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. There are numerous other helpful books, but these are two great places to start.
Keep reading and seeking, even when it gets uncomfortable. Seek to know better and do better, even when it gets frustrating. Seek to care, even when it seems fruitless. If you don’t try and I don’t try - especially when it’s the hardest - we’ve already lost. And who wants to lose to hatred and bitterness?
I don’t, and I hope you don’t either. I believe that my children, and the children you care for, and all of the children to come, deserve more from us than that.
