What is at stake?

What is at stake? Our own humanity. It is hard to be deliberate nowadays. With news outlets spurring headlines every hour, videos of the ridiculous, news stories about Donald Trump, even this article — it is hard to keep everything in line. There are so many opinions, types of people. Too much information. We are confused. We fail to recognize marginalized people’s humanity and their stories. We fail to recognize their lives and the identities they hold.

We are reliant on news outlets and private companies to help us form the narratives we preach. We are not deliberate beings anymore. We rely too much on our devices for information and it inhibits us to talk with others about important issues, such as the act of racism in the United States.

So much information is coming at us, that we do not feel comfortable or educated enough to engage with others about the matter.

We try to be moral because it looks good. But being moral does not necessarily make you a good person; it just makes you moral. If we are not moral, then we get chastised and if we don’t do the “right thing” then we are called perpetuators of the problem. I feel we are all on this earth trying to find meaning, significance and excitement. We want to make it better for our children, our family. We want to be recognized for what we do and applauded for what we say. We want to be appreciated and loved.

I have my phone in my pocket, which I look at every time expecting some piece of information on my screen. I check my email expecting new mail in my inbox and I aimlessly fiddle with my phone, swiping through screens, expecting something interesting will happen.

Just now, I was looking at the New York Times’ “Year in Pictures” page and as I was scrolling through it, I saw pain and tragedy, which did not affect me the way I feel it should. Information was being shown at me in the way of a photo with which I could not connect. The photo was of refugees reaching shore. I saw their faces. They were sad, scared, helpless and relieved. I see these pictures a lot these days and read of bomb explosions in Western Asia and in the Middle East and it has become all normal to me because it is shown so much.

What is at stake? It is our humanity. It is time to rethink it in the 21st century. It is time to reorient, rethink, and re-inspire a better world. A sustainable world that does not compromise our humanity. This change starts in school. We have to rethink the way we teach our children and why we teach them what we do. We have to rethink what is important in life.