Every other status update is some variation of “if you think [insert opposite stance on issue of the day] then just feel free to unfriend me!”
I get the sentiment. Our intentions are good. We want to draw a line in the sand in defense of our disenfranchised brothers and sisters. We’re finally in a position to standup for those who we’ve witnessed be bullied and persecuted. WE’ve been bullied and persecuted.
So we continue to tribalize and turn our backs on other communities whose beliefs don’t line up with our own. We stop venturing into neighborhoods that lean the opposite of our leanings. We eventually simply stop talking to old friends - those same ones who’s parents used to give us a ride to school and chaperone our dances. Those who’s parents were, to some extent, our own segregate parents.
I get it. It’s freaking uncomfortable to go to their homes for an old buddy’s kid’s birthday and find ourselves surrounded by people who seem to be joyfully dancing in a field of ignorance and gullibility.
Society is like a molecule and we’re watching it slowly split.
But no one’s mind has ever changed as a result of being faced with a wall of silence.
We are all more than the labels we fling at each other. Our minds may be infected with bigoted thoughts as a result of trauma and decades of socialization but we are no more “racists” than a man is a “criminal” because he smokes weed in Arizona and sometimes runs red lights.
History has shown, again and again that love is the answer. And drawing lines in the sand is not love. It’s war.
Harvey Milk knew this when he asked the LGBT community to come out. We’ve personally seen our “racist” grandparents say silly shit about people of other ethnicities but act with compassion when it’s our neighbors. “Oh no… It’s those other black folks. I’m not talking about the Johnsons down the block. They’re different.”
We’re all different. Yet the same. The answer is not a wall of silence. Or lines in the sand. It’s love. It’s always been love. And love means accepting those birthday invitations from our old hood even if we gotta listen to some silly-ass shit over dinner. Because they’re still our friends, our service workers, our soldiers, our cooks, our public servants, our kids’ football coaches… They’ve built homes. They’ve cried over the loss of family members. They’ve daydreamed of a better tomorrow…
“We are one” sounds cute on a Prius bumper sticker… But it is rendered meaningless when we continue to refer to “them” as “they.”
They are us. There is no they. Only we.
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