As I sat in a coffee shop a few days after the events in Charlottesville, I overheard a group of retired professors passionately discussing current events for several hours. It was interesting to hear people talking about current events in many different social circles during the next few days. People were very concerned. Every time an act of violence takes place, it rocks people’s worlds and a majority of them are either posting about it, writing about it, talking or arguing about it. As I observe all of this, I get the distinct feeling that history is happening right under our noses. When we look back on horrendous historical tragedies, we wonder how and why these things could have occurred, and what type of barbaric world people were living in. But, here we are experiencing it and these things aren’t happening behind closed doors. They are taking place right where everyone can see them, and in a way where we feel that it is just far enough out of our reach that we can not possibly do anything to change the course of things. After every event, the information gets blasted on social media, news, and in community dialogues and conversations. We are all aware. But what do we do? How do we avoid becoming another historical tale of human failure to find a path to peace ?
As we see these events occur with more frequency, I wonder, when will we truly experience a wake up call?
On the other side of the civil rights movement, after all that has been learned and all of the milestones for equality and humanity that have been achieved, many people don’t understand how we have gotten back here. Historical tragedies and human injustices do not happen overnight. They take place through a series of events that make room for violence within a culture. As we see these events occur with more frequency, I wonder, when will we truly experience a wake up call? We don’t have time to sit back in shock that things are turning out this way. We also don’t have time to continue on the way we are going with no changes. We have to take this as a clear sign: it is time to take a look at ourselves and at the way that our values, our language, our priorities as a culture and our engagement with one another leads people to think that there is room for bigotry, racism and even murder. Culture is used as a tool for co-operation among people who are sharing the same space. Violent acts are a symptom of a violent culture. What values and norms contribute to this? Our values are taught to us by the systems around us. Our role models are people in positions of power proliferating an environment of greed, competition, dominance and inequality. We are members of religions that are meant to model appropriate behavior yet meanwhile they are more concerned about who to cast out and label as evil rather than promoting love and compassion. We partake in an economy that is cutthroat, not about supporting but about competing. We are living in an individualist culture that promotes competition as natural from the perspective of social darwinism and we wonder why people are more ready to hurt one another rather than lift each other up and support each other. We wonder why people don’t have healthy coping strategies, when we teach that it is more important to be externally successful than it is to be internally well. I could go on and on.
On the Saturday following the Charlottesville rally, it was rumored that another alt-right protest would take place, this time in Boston. Massachusetts responded by bringing together 40,000 people in an anti-racism rally to stand up to the protesters. Upon attending this event, I was emotionally braced for tension and potential danger. But when we walked up to the Boston Commons, the first scene I stumbled upon was one I could not have predicted. People of all types, hippies, young children, adults, all dancing together and smiling. People were breaking the tension by creating their own culture; one of unity, one of celebration, and of passion for being on the same page about standing against injustice of all kind. It was powerful to see so many people together for the same purpose. I have sat around so many dinner tables talking about how no one does anything, how we have become a docile nation of non-activists, each keeping to ourselves. This felt very different. This was lively, active, engaged. This was people of all creeds, colors, and backgrounds coming to the same place to discuss the current state of affairs and to make noise for the values they stand for. One of the most powerful symbols I saw was that of a father with his daughter on his shoulders. He was not only standing up for what he believed in, he was passing along the message of being actively engaged in social issues to the next generation. What an important contribution.
What can we do as agents of change? What can we do about a culture of violence as we watch it unfold?
We are constantly in control of shaping the world we live in. It is in the hands of the individual to participate in their culture in order to produce certain values that they stand behind. so first, we have to take responsibility. If you are a United States citizen and you do not like the world you are living in then you need to understand how you are contributing to things being the way they are and then take action to change it. It is up to us to create efforts to get on the same page, to choose an understanding and way of being in the world that will lead us to be more co-operative and united in a divisive world. Some things are beyond our control. However, I do believe that all of the great changes that have occurred in history happened because of the few who were fed up and willing to be the ones to stand up and say something different, do something different. Newton’s first law of physics says it all: “An object in motion stays in motion unless acted on by an outside force.” Lets come up with strategies to solve these problems, and change our approach. Lets think about how we can teach our kids to deal with life in a different way. Lets put our brains together and make a plan for peace instead of being mad that peace hasn’t arrived yet. There are many solutions that we could be working on, but we have to first see the root of the problem in order to know where change is really needed.
“ You can not drive out hate with more hate. Only love can do that because only love is greater than hate.”- Martin Luther King Jr.
