I wasn't sure if I was going to share this post or not, but its been bugging me and writing it out is just as good as talking it out. For me saying what I'm feeling has always been like a release valve, when I say it, I decompress, but more importantly I can then let it go and move on.
This week I wrote a post on Facebook that was intentionally judgmental. Why? Because I was hoping to generate conversations, to possibly shift someone out of passive and myopic thinking. I keep seeing in myself and others that we become so tightly focused on things that we view as important, but that in the scheme of humanity aren't.
The post was about Notre Dame and the number of people I was seeing post about it, meanwhile, two weeks ago, a series of 3 historically black catholic churches were burned to the ground in 9 days in our own backyard, I saw no mention of it by anyone who was now talking about the church burning in Paris. So I pointed that out in my post.
So here is the real reason for my post. In the comments section, someone tried to shame me for pointing out the fact that no one mentioned the Louisiana churches. Said that I was linking something to racism, and shame on me for doing it.
There would have been a time in my life where I would have felt embarrassed or ashamed because this woman was shaming me for me speaking my belief. Not anymore. No one has the right to try to shame or silence you because your opinion is different from theirs. I don't want to live in a world where I have to be silent to make someone else feel comfortable. Do you?
Change happens when we are uncomfortable. Racism is something that needs to change. How we think about things needs to change. We need to have a wider perspective on what is happening around us. That was the point of the post. I'll write it again, we need to have a wider perspective on what is happening around us. We can't do that through silence. You can't be a free spirit in silence. You can't have change through silence and I want change. I want change in how I live my life. I want change in society. I want change to humanity. None of that happens in silence.
We need to stir the pot and talk about uncomfortable things. It's time to stop glossing over and ignoring the things that are ugly in our society. This is the only way we will be able to make change. Speak out. Speak up.
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