Looking In The Mirror

It seems so very easy to gradually become something you never thought you would be. I can not help but imagine that many who have been extremely cruel in their judgements and statements toward others who would never have imagined they would be saying and doing some of the things of the last few years. 

I feel like occasionally it is good for us to check in, whit ourselves and with each other to see if we are in alignment with our deepest values. It is not one of us, or some of us, but all of us who need to do this occasional inventory. Not just as individuals, but as societies, and perhaps us as a single human species. Can we do better?

I know what I have seen and experienced as a black man in America. Not just me, but my family. It is clear that even in the internal ill emotional health in some African American families much of it comes from childhood trauma from our predecessors. I can count my own history of mistakes as partially influenced by this cultural racial violence as well.  I  remember much early verbal abuse in the neighborhood I grew up in, as well as physical attacks all the way to last time I was slapped around by the police when I was 45, saved by a white neighbor who came out of her house. I have also known many good policemen, but it does not take away the feeling of disrespect. 

I know that racial oppression comes in a myriad of horrific guises from the isolation of my childhood to the projects my cousins grew up in, and many other ways. I know that it is far more than the attitudes of individuals, but also mob violence such as the groups that would chase us in terror infused sprints fueled by what might happen if they caught us. Atrocities and endless policy choices are documented and undocumented in their devastation. 

However I also remember the tragedy of the native populations here in this country. Living in Minnesota and seeing how this land was taken, and the social damage done to these people equal to the damage done to Africans. 

I see the misogyny played out over a lifetime, all the way to how even the way I see the disrespectful way women are sometimes spoken to, and remember what an asshole I was in relationships with women as I worked out the anger I had from childhood. I remember my gay friend Dean dying from aids and the cruelty his family treated him with. 

We are all responsible for all of this. It is time for us all to look in the mirror. We have seen bias become so entrenched that no low is too low to keep power. We have seen people turn their backs on all sorts of atrocities, when it seemed to suit their purpose. Not even the innocence of childhood is a protection. 

It is our time to step up and own our collective behavior, all over the world, for every era. It is time for us and realize there's always someone who could legitimately point the finger at us, even as we judge others. It is time to end  demonization, and take up our shared responsibility. We will change. Let’s choose the transformation of compassion.