Speaking Up & Calling In
This is not a time to be silent, I’ve been quiet for too long … After a period of inward reflection and trying to understand the things happening around the world and within my own life - I am ready to speak up again, to share my views with the world.
Those that are silent while a crime happens are as complicit in the crime. I am reminded of the time in middle-school where my friends and I had been playing in the forest behind our school soccer field. In this forested area, there is a huge swing, fondly referred to as “the back swing”, with two chain cables tied high up in 30-40m tall African Juniper trees, then came down to connect to a single metal pipe that fixed into the center of a piece of car tire rubber, fashioned as a seat. Only students that were in 5th grade and higher were allowed to go on this swing. But that day, some of my friends had the bright idea to play on the swings. The swing was suspended in between these two trees that were on a slope, so you would have to run up the hill holding the swing and jump on when you get to the top of the hill - then swing over a wide are of forest that made it feel like one was flying through the air 100ft above the ground.
I didn’t want to get in trouble, but I also didn’t want to leave my friends. So I sat there watching as they swung, occasionally calling out saying things like “you’re going to get in trouble!”, “I hope a teacher doesn’t see you”. Little did I know, another student had seen us on the swing and gone to tell the Ms. Eager - our home room teacher. When we got back to class, Ms. Eager called all of me and my friends to wait outside for her… and we knew we were in trouble. I wasn’t sure for what at this point - since I hadn’t done anything wrong. When she came to get us, she told us that we would be suspended for a week, where we would have to pickup acorns during all of our recess break time. Then during lunch break, after eating, we would get an empty metal NIDO (powdered milk) can, stand at a few feet from the can and take basketball shots trying to put acorns into the can. For every shot that we missed, we had to get more acorns the next day. I was so upset! “But what did I do? I didn’t go on the back-swing” I retorted. And Ms. Eager said “watching someone break a rule and not reporting it is equal to breaking the rule”. I remember being upset about that punishment for so long… honestly, I don’t think I had connected the lesson she was teaching us with an important value I feel called to act on today.
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I worked hard, I made sacrifices, to be a citizen of a country that was governed by rules, that has checks and balance, where there is due process. I am not going to stand by and watch as it falls apart. That would make me as complicit in the destruction of this democracy as anyone else.
I have many friends and family that voted for the Trump administration, and I love them dearly. I still talk to them regularly, I know they love me, and will be there for me when I need it. This is not a time to cut people out of your life for differing views, if half the country, a large part of the religious society (christians, muslims) voted in a democratic process for such a blatantly immoral person to lead them - the issue is not the people. The issue is the system, and we need to fix it together. We cannot find solutions without communicating across party lines and political divides.
Always remember that every human in this country wants to be a good person, cares about their families, and wants to be treated with respect. We are not that different, the only difference is our news sources, the stories we’re being told, that shape how we think we can be a “good person”, about who is our friend and enemy…
Cutting out your Trump-supporting friends means one less person who feels seen and understood by a democrat/liberal - only pushing them further into whatever feelings and stories took them in that direction. Try and find out what made them vote in that direction, try and understand what pain they are feeling that made them vote this way.
Let’s call people in! Please watch this video for more on what it means to “call in” those we disagree with: loretta_j_ross_don_t_call_people_out_call_them_in