Wherever I look these days, I see an either/or mentality. Black or white. No room for gray. It impacts race, religion, politics, life.
We are humans with many layers. With depth. Complexity. But that’s gone now. We are either an ally or a racist. We listen to CNN and The New York Times or to Fox News and The Washington Times. We support looters or we condemn them. We wear a mask and socially distance, or we are selfish and deny reality. We blame our leaders or condemn other countries. We send our kids to camp and school or we live in fear. We speak up or we are silent. We believe in science or we believe in G-d. We are woke or we are ignorant. We have only two shades. Either/or. We live in extremes.
I heard a woman ask her friend, a lifelong conservative and Trump supporter, to spend the day at the local beach, but she refused. “Too many people together,” she reasoned. She wasn’t comfortable. The woman was confused. It didn’t make sense. Of course a day at the beach should sound good to this person. She didn’t support the lockdown. But there are no shoulds when it comes to human beings. Just because we know some information about someone, a label in our head, doesn’t mean we know that person. We know nothing about their complex thoughts or experiences.
A recent post on Facebook made me pause. The poster found it hard to celebrate on July 4th in light of America’s flaws and racial injustice. There was a single voice of dissent among a sea of supporters. The commenter expressed her love for America and questioned the motives of the BLM organization that the poster brought up. The dissenter was removed from the group within an hour of her remarks. I looked up her profile and she appeared to be the loving white mother of a beautiful black son. Simple or complex? Who is she? What does she believe and why? Can others learn from her story? Can she learn from theirs? Not when we all become a caricature of a label. Not when we look at the surface and refuse to dig deeper. Not just into others, but also into ourselves. Are we so simple? Are we all good or all bad? Is there room for error? Room for change? Room for acceptance? How can we improve ourselves and our world if we can’t even talk to one another? How can we learn if we are rendered silent?
How can we stop division and multiply love?
