E Pluribus Unum
When did you first learn about racism? Maybe you sensed fear and pain in your parent’s eyes as they explained its sharp tongues and shadowed hearts to young ears still sounding out the words to fairytales. Or maybe, like me, you learned in subtle layers — our protective epidermal privilege slowly producing a lifetime of chapters written secondhand, congruent with maturity instead of necessity. Maybe we sensed embarrassment in our parent’s eyes as our young lips asked questions their experience could never teach them the answers to. Maybe we all felt something was enormously wrong all along but none of us felt big enough to fix it.
The fight to end racism has again been a predominant fixture in media since the murder of George Floyd last May. I hear the resounding cry from white well-meaning faces that, “Now — more than ever — we need to work towards racial justice,” and, respectfully, I disagree. I disagree that now this clamor for equality is somehow more necessary than it was in previous generations of us that shook our blonde heads and tsk’ed our European tongues. Would the mother of Emmett Till agree that 2020 was somehow more horrific than 1955? Would the families of those who lost their lives in the Tulsa massacre have suggested waiting exactly 100 years to ceaselessly demand widespread and fully rooted change? No. Now — like always — we need to continue the work towards racial justice. In marches and speeches, in classrooms and cathedrals, in living rooms and late night chats. In personal and public accountability towards true change. In both our whispers and our roars.
I’ve never felt an emptiness more heavy than the weight of the gap between where we are and where we need to be. It’s nearly effortless to fall into the chasm dug by dragging hate around for thousands of years, but it’s time to stop choosing rivalries of politics over resemblances of the heart. It’s time to stop hating people for what they assume when we’re assuming what they hate. Today I was reminded that hope is a discipline, and I’m choosing to keep in practice. Remember that volcanoes don’t develop overnight but are slowly formed by thousands of years of building pressure; as this country erupts in polarization, it is the full responsibility of each of us to learn, to lean in, and to lead.
Learn about civil rights both past and present. Lean into the discomfort felt and know that it is necessary for change. Lead whatever falls under your purview— even if that’s just your own thoughts and votes and voice. Not everyone feels called to speak in front of thousands, nor to march alongside hundreds. We shouldn’t need to win over people in order to win people over. But if the last hundred years have taught us anything, it’s that sometimes power is the antonym of change. Here’s to a mutiny of mutuality.
