The world is full of people. It’s not full of police officers, doctors, teachers, Asians, Hispanics, Males and Females. Our earth is full of people. People who fortunately and unfortunately have the same equal opportunity to decide how they live their lives. It’s full of people who get to make decisions whether they are good or bad. It’s full of people who are affected by those decisions whether they are good or bad. It’s so easy to get caught up in the idea that the problem is US against THEM when the reality is that it’s good versus evil and always has been. People don’t come out of the womb hating their neighbor. Hate is taught and learned. Hate comes from the inside. It’s felt and it lingers. Hate pushes you to find revenge for what you feel is unjust and unfair. Equality is something that we can only hope for and in a perfect world it would exist but the reality is that it doesn’t now and the sad truth is that it’s probably going to be a while if ever.
All I keep seeing are officers who are afraid of my husband now more than ever. I see wives begging their husbands not to leave whether they are leaving the house with a badge or black skin. I see parents teaching their children to be afraid of the police instead of teaching them to respect those that put their lives on the line to keep us safe. Or parents who pull their children closer when a black man sits to closely on the bus. Ultimately the difference that I want to see in the world doesn’t come from finding justice for those that have been mistreated and disrespected. It comes from what I choose to teach within the walls of my own home. It comes from raising law abiding citizens that respect those around them. It comes from teaching your children that wrong decisions are coupled with consequences and that life isn’t always fair, it was never meant to be. It’s about seeing people as just that, people. Not as their skin color or what they do for a living. Not as who they choose to marry or what they choose to worship. It’s about seeing people as free humans who choose their life and make their own decisions and then finding peace within what you can control. It’s about showing the world through how you live that they were wrong about what they thought they knew about you. It’s about teaching them that while racism is still alive and well, we are working to teach our kids to grow up expecting a better tomorrow regardless of circumstance.
All lives matter but the truth is that Black lives haven’t always mattered. It is important to place an emphasis on finding solutions to our deepest fears as we watch our loved ones struggle to be treated equally. Violence no matter how oppressed you may feel will never yield the trust and peace filled relationships we yearn for. Taking the life of a father or a mother or a husband or a wife will never bring back what you may have lost. It will not take away your fears and it will not calm your troubled soul. It is not paving the way for any future that we hope to be brighter for us and our children. Hate breeds hate and our only hope left in this world lies within what we can control. Hope isn’t in your Facebook status, your news article debate or even your good-willed peace protests. It starts at home and it starts with you.
***
This post originally appeared at 3 Boys, One Blog and Me, published with permission.
Read this next —-> I’m White, But I Married the Son of a Black History Icon, and This Is What I Discovered About Color
