Two hundred and fifteen children’s bodies were unearthed at a former residential school for Indigenous youth. Forced assimilation was the hallmark of schools throughout North America.
And we are finally acknowledging the 1921 massacre of Tulsa’s thriving Black community, as we continue to uncover the systematic racism that haunts us.
These are not merely historical one-offs. The mindset that created them is alive and permeates all dominant cultures. It’s a sickness that forbids diversity and that is why trans people are among today’s targets. It’s a virus willing to stifle anything and anyone that may interrupt its control and that is why children from Palestine are routinely arrested, as are imprisoned Uighurs of China and on and on…
If we view these atrocities as separate issues, change seems hopeless. How can we possibly stop all inhuman acts? We lack the will and our excuses are endless. But if we look to the source of the sickness…we have a chance.
Our sensibilities give way to self-destruction. Our insistence on conformity and our inability to see ourselves in another allow ignorance to thrive. It’s not enough to “love the sinner and not the sin”, as my Christian friends are eager to say. No, it is best to slay the dragon of judgment that we each carry.
It’s not enough to cry for the two hundred and fifteen children and their families, rather we must stop perpetuating the greatest ignorance of humankind: that we are separate from the whole. It is the greatest lie.
One people. One planet. Every action carries consequence. Every silence is betrayal.
Print / photo compliments of wikimedia commons.
For more on the evolution of humankind, Listen to John Trudell.
let kindness win 