The demonstrations filling our streets today have made me more mindful of the realities of our society. They have made it more difficult for me to live on autopilot enjoying a life aided by privileges that I rarely take time to fully consider. I am thankful for those who have taken to the streets and who refuse to go quietly into that good night. It is their engagement and perseverance that have me rethinking the meanings of words like ‘fairness’ and ‘justice’ as we search to create a more perfect union.
This morning I am engaged and frustrated. My emotions are real but the empathy I feel comes with the realization that I cannot know what it feels like to walk the streets of our country in fear or to have to have ‘the conversation’ with my kids. I can’t possibly understand what it feels like to be harassed for simply driving a nice car or to be in fear of my life because I chose to go jogging. Even though I grew up on the streets of Baltimore, I can’t possibly know how different my life would have been had I not been born a white male.
The anger I feel at the injustices I am watching fuels the frustration I feel for having ignored the injustices in our society that have been obvious for centuries. It is inexcusable that I have adopted - that we have adopted - a sort of motivated blindness when it comes to the suffering of our fellow citizens and that we have told ourselves that it is someone else’s responsibility to ‘fix’ the problems. I can only hope that this time - these demonstrations and the unfairness that fuels them - will not be relegated to the dustbins of our memory as they have so many times in the past.
Martin Luther King in his 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” implored us to look beyond the unrest of the moment and to grapple with the causes of that unrest. He warned us that the greatest danger to our society is not the action of racists but the inaction of people of privilege who are not willing to rock to the boat. He was right then. He is right now. The only action that is unacceptable in the future, is inaction. If we tolerate unfairness, we teach that unfairness is acceptable. To be a great society, we must believe as Dr. King did that: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We must collectively act to confront systemic problems because “Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
It is time to act even if that action makes others uncomfortable. It is time to speak out even if that makes us uncomfortable. It is time to choose love - not fear - as we learn to stand with people who don’t look like - or think like - us. Our diversity has been our strength as a country only when we embrace our differences. We must remember that America is a fragile experiment and that creating a more perfect union is hard, often uncomfortable, work.