How do you listen to the one who says Haven’t we moved beyond all this?
What are you thinking when you hear What we really should be talking about are Those White Supremacists?
How does your face not contort when you hear from that white person’s mouth the words I’m not racist?
The best of course is What are you talking about? I don’t see color.
And you’re dying inside. Or you should be.
Something in you should be rebelling and thinking how are these people my friends.
Do you open your mouth and ask What did you say?
Why is it you can talk to someone who denies human caused climate change? How is that easier than responding to racist attitudes?
You can talk about what a person believes or an idea he has but maybe not about the personhood that a history of privilege has shaped.
Does that feel too personal?
Martin Luther King Jr had much to say about FEAR. If you read his quotes, will that make it easier?
Certainly much of what lies beneath Climate Change denial is FEAR of losing our lifestyle, our comforts and having to CHANGE?
And we’re hard-wired to FEAR what is unfamiliar to us. So maybe that is elemental in RACISM but that’s way too simple an explanation.
The bigger FEAR in racist attitudes is feeling that one’s BEING is threatened by this person in front of me.
The bigger FEAR is that if he is equal to me than I am less than I believe myself to be.
In the comparing of myself to others I must come out on top.
Or I will be less than…
Are we so ungrounded that we must live in a way that supports the core belief that I am better than another?
How do we shift to open hearts and minds?
We must be RADICAL and RELENTLESS!
No one deserves to be treated less than another and no one is better than anyone else.
We are all connected to the best and worst of us.
WE HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO.
GET TALKING!