Jean Matua “From the Heart”
Spend just a few minutes on social media and you will find that most people are dividing into two camps: one group that claims to be color-blind, without a racist bone in their bodies; their words bespeak, either intentionally or not, that there’s nothing wrong with our system, nothing needs to be changed, and that either “thugs” (a racially-charged word) are responsible for all of the turmoil following the death of George Floyd at the knee of Minneapolis Police; this group also tends to blame political parties, or those who affiliate with them, for anything negative, and they decry any attempts to “alter” history by removing Confederate flags and monuments.
The other group seems to acknowledge that there is much to learn, that change is needed, and that they want to be a part of that societal change.
You know which camp you are in, and can surmise which camp most of your friends are in.
But let’s put aside camps, and the idea of “taking sides,” can we?
Rather, let’s accept that recent events make us uncomfortable. Discussion of these events makes us uncomfortable. Human nature is to avoid the uncomfortable, but that makes us retreat to those camps of like-minded folk.
Instead, let’s examine that discomfort, and look for the source of the discomfort.
Consider, just for a moment, that everything you believe about race is based on a lie. There are not four or five races of human on Earth; there is only a human race.
And that human race began in Africa. It was black Africans who ultimately populated the Earth, and our marvelous human bodies adapted to the various conditions thereafter. (The further we migrated from the equator, the lighter our skin became.) God created mankind in His image, and planted him in Africa; we are all his descendants, all of us.
The concept of a “white” Jesus only came centuries after his life on Earth, in Europe, when Jesus was portrayed as a white European. And ever since then, we have been indoctrinated in the superiority of “whites.” (Guess what: white is not a skin color; we are all various shades of tan!)
Whenever veteran educator Jane Elliott speaks, she asks her audience to stand if they would be happy to be treated the same as black and brown people are. She repeats it a few different ways. No one stands. Her point: If you don’t want to be treated that way, why in the hell do you allow your black and brown cousins to be treated so poorly?
I encourage each of you to embrace the discomfort you feel these days. Use it as an opportunity to look inside of yourself, to your beliefs and motives, and consider the probability that you’ve been indoctrinated (like the rest of us) into something that is not true and not sustainable.
Today is a golden opportunity to learn, to improve, to change. We all have room to improve. I love Maya Angelou’s statement: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”