I was in junior high in the mid 70’s when I was kissed by a boy for the first time. A teenage crush had been building between the two of us for months, and one day when we both serendipitously ended up in an empty hallway with a bathroom pass, he decided to make his feelings known. To date, I must say, it was the best first kiss I have ever experienced. I have never forgotten what his lips felt like on mine, and it makes me smile to admit that all kisses since have been measured against that one. As news leaked out about our tryst, tension built, and within two days, I found myself once again in that empty hallway between classes. This time, though, I was being held against a locker and kicked from behind by three black girls who were shouting racial slurs. Unbeknownst to me, there was a code that I was breaking...one, that to this day I was able to accept, but never able to fully understand: White girls were not allowed to be with black boys. Raised in a Christian household by a mom and dad who accepted nothing less than love as a standard, I was lucky to not be influenced by prejudice, and that was a good thing, because my extended family never stopped talking about it. The inequalities they perceived were commented on constantly, and from birth on, I was exposed to hateful, racial remarks (I can’t even put in print) about EVERYONE who was a different race or religion than ours. Their negative behavior juxtaposed against the beautiful stories I was hearing about Jesus made it very clear that love was the only emotion I ever wanted to feel. For years after the hallway attack, I could recall the pain I felt as vividly as I can still remember the tenderness of that kiss. The pain, though, wasn’t from the sharp-toed shoes they used to kick me. It was for being hated for who I was. It was because my desire to ignore color was turned against me. The feeling of being misunderstood was profound and left a permanent mark beyond black and blue that changed my life in many ways...for the better, and forever. When a black American says a white American can never know how it feels to be prejudiced against because of the color of their skin, I can nod with understanding, knowing it is their reality, but my heart pangs at what it knows to be the real truth: Prejudice exists within everyone and no one is exempt. None of us knows what it feels like to be anyone else. We are all just looking at each other from the outside using a human view that is tainted by opinion, old belief systems, fear and judgment. Some of us don’t even truly know ourselves, so how could we ever truly define one another? It is understandable how we can get carried away by anger and frustration with what we are exposed to in the press. I know many...white and black...have become afraid to speak their truth because of fear of reprisal and political correctness. I also know from a wellness perspective that we, as a nation and individually, will never realize peace and happiness unless we are willing to stop pointing out the perceived flaws and differences in one another and start coming together to answer the most simplistic questions: What does everyone want? What is exactly and inherently the same in each and every one of us? What is our birthright? Most would come to the same conclusion: The desire to be happy and to be loved and accepted for who we are. Inciting more anger and fear is NOT going to fix this. Blaming each other is NOT going to get to the root cause. Reiterating what was in the past without acknowledging how far we have come is NOT going to get us peacefully through the next leg of this journey together. We do know from history, though, what will work. Gandhi gave us Love and Peace; MLK...Love and Tolerance; and most recently, Mother Teresa left us a legacy of Love and Compassion. The coach in me wants to suggest to our nation to re-adopt all of these sentiments along with another profound attitude that appears to be the most necessary for our time: Love and Forgiveness. We need to start fresh. We need to demand of ourselves and one another to seek out the good without constantly attacking and taking sides. We need to understand that it is not about black vs white or red vs blue. It is about being a rainbow! We must start believing that we are the most beautiful, robust and powerful when standing together, side by side, than we will EVER be standing disjointed and apart. We need to stop and ask ourselves right now before we do even more damage to this country, What legacy are we leaving to our children if all we ever do about our issues is incite rage and lay blame?
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 16:07:55 +0000
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