Empathy Interrupted

I want to apologize, in advance, if I offend anyone.  My hope is that this piece invokes unity, compassion, empathy for those hurting along with a motivation to work on our hearts.  We desperately need a better tomorrow.  In my opinion (that I am fully aware not everyone will agree with) the state of the world today is a direct reflection of the condition of our hearts.  We have some deep healing to do, and by we, I mean the entire human race. 

I will not pick a side.
I care about human beings.
Black people, people of color and immigrants are human beings!

For that matter, so are white people.

How have we arrived to this?
Dehumanizing is how we got here, remember?
Police & law enforcement officers are human, too.
Both people of color and police are being hunted, villainized and bullied.
Both are hurting for this City.
All of us are scared for our communities or lack thereof.
Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Where is the love?
Where is the call to correct in having the hard conversations about FEAR, vulnerability and healing?
Who benefits from this incitement of hate and hurt?
Looting isn’t a balm for us, it is a raping of our morals.

It is another pathway to cage us.
Is a black police officer a family of blue and no longer a black life that matters?

What is your weapon of choice? 

Will you allow it to be love? 

Do you dare to cover your neighbor no matter who they voted for? 

Who started this cancel culture trend and how soon before they get cancelled?

Being woke is so much deeper than the latest conspiracy theory and regurgitated tweets.

I am hoping not to lose people in one sentence.
Please hear my broken heart.

We need to see the bigger strategy here.
We have a REAL enemy & we distracted af.

No one wins when we praise hatred over humanity. 

I was about five years old when I had my first negative encounter with police.  Yes, FIVE years old.  My father was chased down by the police, and handcuffed in front of my very pregnant mother and my five-year old sobbing self.  He had run down the street yelling at a woman on a bike who scratched the door of his brand new Mazda.  The biker had headphones on and was possibly ignoring my brown father in a rage over his property being ruined so carelessly.  He worked two jobs to support us and this was his first brand new car.  He brought it home with plastic still covering the seats.  Maybe he should have handled things differently.  Retrospect will invade our thoughts for years if we let it.  So, here we are in the backseat of a squad car.  My mother didn’t know how to drive so they towed us all in with my Dad still in cuffs.  The police-woman looked at me with disgust and repeated “shut up, kid. Stop crying.”   

Here’s the thing.  I have a whole new grace for this scenario.  Maybe the police-woman never had children.  Maybe the sound of my crying was giving her a headache.  Maybe my Dad had said something mean to her before she met me?  This was not her finest moment, clearly.  But, in all fairness, I have had some pretty shameful moments in my lifetime.  I once grabbed a woman’s face in my hands like she was a child, in my own fury, a total stranger.  I humiliated her just like I was humiliated as a child by that police officer.  I felt weak and afraid as a child so I transformed that into “power” over someone else who did not deserve that disrespect.  In the end, pain will make us do some -ish, will it not?   The scars on our hearts will play out real ugly and if we aren’t careful, will lead us into some serious self-destruction.

My point is.  Aren’t we all hurt people hurting people?  Can it be that simple? 

The system is broken, I will NOT deny that fact.  It is a set up for people of color, the poor and the nameless.  We are pressed on every side and then expected to act accordingly.  And it was built during a time when we had no voice.  But now we do.  Question is… how will we proceed?

We are alive, concerned, passionate, sensitive to what is happening around us… But most of all-we are RESPONSIBLE for how we move forward.  I want to move forward from a healed heart, not a hate-filled one.  How ‘bout you?