There Is So Much Pain Today
There is so much pain today. There is so much hate and disturbance in the world. Terror and anger and fear. Alton Sterling, Philando Castile. People are dying and fighting. Fear, loss, confusion, anger. These dominate our psyche. They tear us apart within, and from each other.
As we stand together to make change in our world, we seek justice. We ask: how will we bring justice to our citizenry? Justice for the black and brown people killed in the streets; justice for their families and their friends. Redress for the grievances of state violence and oppression. Fairness and equality before the law. We seek justice in exercising our constitutional rights. We have a right to free speech, to assemble peacefully and to gather, in public and in private spaces. As demonstrations in Minnesota and in Baton Rouge have shown, the specter of state violence has descended upon all the people. Let there be no confusion: these rights are not guaranteed.
Indeed they are violated and ignored in order to suppress the voices of the people. Watch videos of police meeting a peaceful protest with assault rifles and riot gear, storming a private home, beating and arresting protesters in the yard of a house. Watch as our voices are stamped out.
We want a better life for our citizens. Black people in this country do not even have the right to live. They are gunned down in public. They live in fear of violence, very real danger that awaits them in their cars, in their homes and in the streets. And in raising their voices and joined by white people in solidarity, they are beaten back further, denied the freedom to even declare that they live in pain.
So we must seek justice. We must seek justice for the killing of black Americans. We must seek justice for exercising our rights.
But do we know what justice is? Do we agree what it looks like? Even if we do know what it is, how do we use what we know to decide what to do?
Now is the time to decide. Shall we live in hate and rage, drowning out the voices of those who disagree with us? Do we placate our own fear with the self-satisfaction of the (moral) high ground? Do we pass judgment from above while walking the streets that we’ve abandoned for our bastions of digital grace? Or do we take to those streets, which are rightfully occupied by the peaceful protests of a united community?
When chaos and madness of destruction stare us in the face, we often turn to more destruction to make this right. We witness things fall apart, breeding fear inside for our own destruction. Hurt-people hurt people. But there is enough destruction in the world. There is enough chaos, fear, hate, and malignancy. Even the great edifice of our human civilization will one day perish under the entropy of nature.
Yet humans can construct. We can destroy, yes, but only because we’ve lived to build. And so in the face of this violence-the expression of the fear and anger we hold toward one another-we must ask ourselves “what can we build?” How will we love? How can we create a world where love will not yield to fear and descend into the insanity of hatred?
We want answers so I’ll start with a meager few:
Get our police out on the street. Pressure our officials to adopt policies that require police to walk or bike around the communities they serve. This will foster relationships and dialogues with community members of all colors and classes. In walking, biking and sweating in the community, officers will set an example of a positive lifestyle: fitness, health and safety. They will contribute to global equitability be reducing fossil fuel use. There are those who may respond that this will expose cops to violence at the hands of bad actors. But no matter how armed and garrisoned in cars and trucks, police will still be vulnerable to the violence of those who hate them. No one will be safe until we heal the divide. This gesture, this sea change, shock-and-awe vulnerability will bring us to healing.
Education: We must push for a massive public investment in our schools. We must pay teachers large salaries and good benefits. We need to fund ongoing, intensive teacher training programs. Our schools must be directly accountable to elected officials and bodies. And we should be focused primarily on early education and K-12. Higher education is important, but with the Internet available to so many Americans, the vast free resources that it holds are wasted on a population who has been failed in their literacy and critical thinking from an early age. In order to accomplish this, we will need to pay more taxes. Higher taxes. But that investment will pay off tenfold and raise the standards of living for all. Research and meet your school board members, superintendent and city/county officials. Attend a PTA meeting. Get involved in local elections.
The Local Sphere: Just as the forces that govern bodies in the vastness of space are reflected in the atoms that make up our bodies, so is the national or international zeitgeist reflected in the community, on the block, in cities, towns, developments, rural areas. When we try to grasp the greatness of the problems that plague our nation, society, civilization, we must turn our building to the immediacy of daily existence.
But to know the state of affairs in our own communities, we must gather in public across the lines of race, class, income, lifestyle. How do all the people in our own community live? In the face of the atrocity that is military response to peaceful protest, we must gather even more with the conviction that we will be heard.
Art: There may be no more productive gathering than an artistic event. Music, theater, painting, photography, design, humor, video games, film, poetry. Creativity will bring the poles together. People will gather at events and in spaces structured by human creative energy. We must endeavor to open access to all people. Make these events free, or close to free. If we can do that-if we can allow people to express their humanity and greatest strengths and weaknesses-our souls will be drawn closer together.
Do not shame the ignorant: When we encounter ignorance, it is easy to dismiss that human as uncritical, stupid, or willfully blind to truth and justice in order to prioritize their own hate. But ignorance cannot be stamped out by inflicting blame, or trying to inspire embarrassment and shame for ignorant views. That will only entrench the hatred and fear we want to extinguish: a form of violence in its own right.
Global is local: The Internet allows human beings to see more of the world than ever before. We can be informed and misinformed more broadly and deeply than ever before. This phenomenon cannot be underestimated. There is more information available than can be parsed by any individual. Global knowledge gives us access to great wisdom. But in truth, so little of the world is accessible to any human individual at any one time. Each one of us can only occupy a narrow physical space. We need to take the wisdom of this global knowledge and apply it directly to where we live. In this way we can harness the power of globalization to build a permanent and better future, instead of using it only to waste goods, resources, and energy for material satisfaction of the moment.
For those of us who live in comfort, look at all that we have. The security of shelter, the perception of a right to clean drinking water available in abundance, energy to heat and cool our homes, access to food and nutrition, ways to express ourselves and opportunities for meaningful work, leisure and play, security in medical treatment and emergency care. There are communities the world over where none of these circumstances are guaranteed. Within our own communities, these are only guaranteed in part, inequitably among neighbors and fellow citizens. Some have. Some have not. Many have not. Let us celebrate what we have, and seek that for others.
There will be a long battle for justice. We cannot stop until the rights of all of our citizens are respected and revered, regardless of color, appearance, class, sexual orientation or faith. We cannot stop until we have retaken the right to speak in public, the right to gather to make our voices heard. We must demand that right and claim it. We cannot stop until black and brown bodies are accepted as deserving of life and liberty by law enforcement. This is only the beginning.
But most importantly we must build. We must organize and build the world that is waiting. We must take action to secure our rights, because democracy is not something you have, but something you do. In the world we can imagine, democracy is something you are. I will keep writing, I will keep talking. There can be no more silence. White people cannot be lulled into submission by our comfort, our privilege and wealth. Because if we stand idly by, when power rears its head in our world, when it ignores our right to live in peace and determine the course of our own existence, we will have wished we had the sense to stand with our fellow human beings, instead of retreating into cowardice and abdication.
When we come together to build the world where we all have the opportunity to live a good life, where prosperity and fulfillment reigns, then we will have justice and peace.