"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." --Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird
Usually, I try to remain pretty apolitical on this blog. I didn't set out to write in that space - there are plenty of political bloggers, who have a lot more interest in it than I do. But there has been a lot of disturbingly vitriolic discourse in this country of late, some of it culminating in violence or death. And with each news story, my head and my heart hurt just a little bit more to think that we've arrived at a place where fear of The Other makes people stop seeing each other as PEOPLE first, and not the labels applied to THEM.
Instead of considering that {GAYS/MUSLIMS/ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS/DEMOCRATS/REPUBLICANS/LIBERALS/CONSERVATIVES/[insert your own label here]} are really just individual people trying to live a life, just like you or me, The Label is tossed around as a dehumanizing epithet. THEY are pushing THEIR agenda. THEY want us dead. THEY are taking the jobs and our money. THEY are wrong and we need to "take back America" from THEM.
WTF, people? Are you so blinded by hatred and fear that you can't see these are people? People who have families and get up in the morning and go to work and raise their kids and try to put food on the table and have some fun and find love and go to the grocery store and do the laundry and stress over paying bills and plan vacations and...and...and. And do the things I do every day. Except they do them with a same-sex partner, or reading from a different book than I do, or in a different country, or in fear of being caught but feeling like they have no other options, or believing that they love their country and are trying to do right by it even if the nuances of those beliefs are different from yours or mine.
There ARE people to be reviled and repudiated in the world. But they're still individual people, crazy people, power-hungry people, obsessed people. Not labels. And people who may have some traits in common with those individuals are not responsible for the behavior of the nutjobs.
Do I think I'm better than other people, that I'm some super-enlightened, bias-free person? HELL NO. I have biases, and gut reactions, and sometimes, fear. I've made snap judgements and been harsh. But I do try to check myself, and put myself in the "skin" of other people. I make an effort to remember to take each person on their own merits and try to have an open mind and heart until someone proves themselves unworthy of it. If that's not something you're accustomed to, I challenge you to do the same. Believe in the words Harper Lee wrote for Atticus Finch. Or, if that's too literary for you, how about some George Costanza: "You know, we're living in a society!"
