#1) A truck plowed into a crowd in Nice, France. At least 86 are reported killed. What I heard was that the truck driver was shooting at the crowd and zigzagging through to get the maximum damage. The thought of a truck being used as a weapon of such destruction—-a transportation vehicle we take for granted, see every day—shook me.
#2) I am the victim of a terrorist attack. I was hit by shrapnel from one of the bombs at the Boston Marathon. Remember that? Light years ago. I was still being treated at Mass General Hospital 2 years after the event. It occurred to me that the number of people who can say they are ‘victims of a terrorist attack’ is growing exponentially.
#3) I found out a very selfish part of me. I had been exhaustingly busy day at The Good Men Project—let’s just say it’s been a tough week for a publication committed to helping solve the problems of racism, but we had also just launched a new, mobile-friendly site design which needs bugs worked out. It got to be 4 pm and I realized I hadn’t eaten in well over 24 hours. So I went out for lunch.
And while I was out, the reports of the attack in Nice came rolling in. And I said to myself “I can’t even go to lunch without another terrorist attack happening.” Pretty selfish, right? 85 people got killed and I’m looking at the effect of another terrorist attack on me. But…that sentiment does lead to a universal insight, which is why I’m admitting to it. That is our fear, isn’t it? That we can’t even go out to lunch without there being another terrorist attack. That we can’t go about our daily routine. That we can’t just be normal without something catastrophic happening.
And isn’t that what terrorists want? All eyes on them. They want to distract people from the hard work of creating change. We will not be distracted.
#4) When I was at the Boston Marathon, it was a bright sunny day. A celebration. One of my daughters was running, I was standing at the finish line with one of my other daughters. When the first bomb went off, I thought it was fireworks. Or a celebratory cannon. Then we saw smoke rising from the crowd. Nothing really made sense. I thought I heard the crowd murmur the word bomb. With a flash of insight, I thought to myself: “It’s Patriot’s day! Of course it was a bomb!” Then the second bomb went off, the one that struck me. I can’t help but wonder if the people in Nice thought the truck was just accidentally going through the crowd when they had the moment of realization that is was Bastille Day, and of course it must be a terror attack. After the second bomb went off, I couldn’t even process what I was seeing. My brain literally wouldn’t let me comprehend the pieces of the scene. I am sure that happened with people in Nice.
#6) It was the year 2000. Christmas time. I was out shopping, and I ran into a friend of mine, Mike Casey, in a little shop in the mall. He was with his wife who was very pregnant. It was the first time I had met her. Her name was Neilie. They were radiant. We laughed. We hugged. In September of the following year Neilie was on a plane from Boston to Los Angeles, and that plane crashed into the World Trade Center. At the funeral, the church was so crowded they had to broadcast the service on loudspeakers outside. And I’ll never forget a story Mike told at his wife’s funeral. He said that morning was just another morning—they were both running around, he had to get to work, she had to get to the airport. And yet his wife refused to rush the kiss good-bye, she was completely present and kissed him like it was their very first kiss. As Mike said: “Neilie always knew how to say good-bye.” That has touched me and actually changed me and the way I interact with people. I want to be the person who always knows how to say good-bye.
7) One of the things that I realized—it used to be that you thought only countries had the ability to start a war. But we seem to have individuals who can cause as much destruction as any given battle. How did we get here? Are these attacks small individual wars? The US Pentagon has issued a report that climate change will most likely be the single biggest threat to national security, as it will create a further scarcity of resources in areas. And yet the conversations about the environment are often laced with with the feeling of helplessness, that nothing you do will be enough. And that is what we have to change.
At The Good Men Project, we continue to believe that change is possible. That we can co-create a future together. That we can change ourselves as individuals, we can partner with small groups, and we can change the narrative and the societal structures with large groups and other media companies. We can change the culture.
We talked about all this on today’s Good Men Project Friday Call With the Publisher because that is what we do—we take the really difficult topics, we discuss them, we share stories, we forge new paths for social change together.
Lisa Blacker set the tone for the call when she said “I am here because I want people I can talk to about these difficult issues.” We discussed how exhausting it all is, how easy it is to want to hide your head in the sand. Mike Kasdan said, “Along with the Twitter chat we had last night, we have been having a lot of conversations about racism. And I was talking to Kwame Brown, who speaks about race a lot, about how exhausting it all is. I was also talking about it in conjunction with the new information about the Jerry Sandusky case, that Joe Paterno knew years earlier than originally thought — are we really supposed to have the emotional bandwidth to go down this rabbit hole again? But Kwamie said, this is how change work. That feeling of exhaustion. the trying to convert conversations to actual actions. Mark Sherman talked about how the election back in the year 2000 for him was a turning point—we could have had a President who cared about environmental issues. We talked about the upcoming election, and a news media that allows racism and bigotry to be perpetuated. About politicians who don’t represent ALL of their constituents. About the marginalization and disenfrancisment of different social groups. We talked about Pokemon Go, and the ability to lose yourself in playing the game. Thaddeus Howze talked about it from the perspective of a black man: “In some ways because we live in the 21st century we see more of the world. As a result we are more fragile and more exposed. We think we see more random violence, but what we see is more random violence than controlled war—but it is not true that we live in more violent times…We have an obligation to NOT turn ourselves on all the time…You become exhausted and they win. We have to take care of ourselves. A a black man in America, we are always ready for a random act of violence. For you this is new. For us this life. if we don’t take care of ourselves. we won’t be able to make the changes we want.”
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Soon after the call, I received an email with this quote. It reminds me to end on a note of hope:
“Take your eyes off the headlines and look deeply into the eyes of your fellow human beings. Bridge the divides between us with kindness.” — Adina Lewittes
We got heroes like Mother Jones standing up due too much corporate power, police brutality, economic inequality, etc.,; however, they don’t seem to get much attention in the media or in the history books or are not taught in the history books.
April 15th, 3:45pm. The phone rang. It was my wife. She told me of the attack, and that she’d already gotten the call that casualties were expected to be high and Mass General would be sending overflow to her. So there I was, standing in my Livingroom, with no uniform to put on. I wasn’t a cop, a firefighter, or even and EMT. My military uniform had long been on mothballs, and I’m getting too damn old anyway. All I could do was to log her Facebook page to make sure that our family members that were running, those on… Read more »
Thank you DJ. Beautiful. Ok, for now, I am out of words. I want to let yours settle in place, be heard, be internalized. But I’ll be back with more words, for the resolve is deep and the inspiration of “Boston Strong” indeed lives on.
Thanks for sharing, Lisa. I think of the weeks after 9/11 in NYC. Nobody talked or laughed on the subway for weeks after. It was a sense of community I had never before experienced and have been feeling the last few months. The worst thing we can do, I believe, is to feel numb to the tragedies and lose communication and community. Thanks for allowing us to share on GMP.
I remember hearing about how The Fantasticks was running on Broadway (one of the longest running shows of all time). With the classic song “Try to Remember”. The lyrics go: “Try to remember, that kind of September, when life was slow, and oh, so mellow.” And after 9/11, Broadway had shut down for weeks. And it finally opened up, and the cast of that show started to sing those lyrics and just couldn’t do it. They just broke down. The cast finally just sat at the edge of the stage, holding on to each other, and had the audience sing… Read more »
Lisa, we are better because you are on the job. No one knows that more than me, but I want you to know how much you are appreciated. We know how much you care and how much this mission means to you.
Do words in a virtual place like this matter? They do because you hold the community together and remind us that our words matter. What you do is important. What this community says is important. What we do to make it actionable is even more important. So thank you. Just thank you.
Thank you Ken. You do know we wouldn’t have made it this far without you!
When I first came onto The Good Men Project, I did so because it was interesting—interesting as an idea, interesting as a business. It soon became apparent how important the conversation was. In today’s world—it is critical and urgent.
The words are important because they change people on the inside, and they help people process the change on the outside. Our core community consists of the people who can see that.
The Nice incident hit me differently then past incidents. My wife and I spent a month in Europe last summer. We experienced a life style which was very different from what we have in the US. Although many trendy areas in the US have the sidewalk cafe’s, sidewalk cafe’s are a common way of life in Europe. When I got the news, my mind immediately went to the countless hours we spent in these cafe’s. I thought of how relaxing it was sitting in these cafe’s, eating the local cuisine, drinking wine and taking in the beauty of the area.… Read more »
Thank you for writing this Tom. You articulated something important. When I was at the Boston Marathon—it was just another beautiful day. It was a *normal* day, just like it was for you when you were sitting outside in a cafe in Italy with an espresso and an amazing pastry. And those are the times when we DON’T have fear, and we shouldn’t have fear. It is what is so striking about terrorism, that it usurps the normal everyday life we just want to live. Thank you for telling your story and how these events affect you. Wishing your family… Read more »
Thank you.
Lisa, Thanks for your passionate, caring, and honest sharing of your experiences. This is what makes this discussion real, engaging, enduring, and valuable. Let’s keep the dialogue going and remember to take care of ourselves. “Take your eyes off the headlines and look deeply into the eyes of your fellow human beings. Bridge the divides between us with kindness.” — Adina Lewittes Remember the headlines report what sells (If it bleeds, it leads), but there is more to life than what sells. Take time to look at the children, your neighbors, your friends, your colleagues, those with whom you agree,… Read more »
Thank you Jed. We do sometimes get so caught up in fighting with those we disagree that we forget to really look at and appreciate those with whom we agree and love. I am going to be more aware of that.
I want to be a person who knows how to say good bye ……………….
Thanks Phyllis. What I have learned to do is…at the moment of good-bye, let people know how meaningful your encounter with them was. You can do this with people you love, with people you work with, with complete strangers. Don’t force intimacy, simply say something specific about why your interaction with them was important. In this case right here….I am so glad you gave me the opportunity to explain that.
I am sure that I am one of the many who worry about those that do the heavy lifting involved at GMP, including it’s Publisher. Hosting the “conversation no one else is having” must get exhausting at times. Overhearing this conversation must be emotionally depleting at times. I set back and wonder how do these GMP people host the conversation, make brilliant contributions to it, nurture writers, support activists, fret over website functioning and design tee shirts. GMP metaphorically “eats stereotypes for lunch” as it’s staff struggle to remember to eat. To GMP staff, I extend my gratitude for what… Read more »
Wow. Just wow. So much in this comment is complete gems of sentences, and a story in itself. I had to laugh as I thought “no wonder I didn’t eat lunch that day, I was busy eating stereotypes!” But the sentence that really struck a chord was “When we are focused on how good having compassion feels, these are ultimately joyous matters to contemplate.” And that is why you can worry about a million things, but worrying about me, personally, burning out needn’t be one of them. I see the change we create every day, and when people like you… Read more »
That Thaddeus Howze quote is great.
When I was young I remember plane hijackings being a big thing, but I also didn’t know anyone directly touched by terrorism , not even through a friend or family member.
Now I can say I know 3 people that have been injured (one fatally) in a terrorist bomb attacks, and not one of those was 9/11.
Wow. I am so sorry to hear that. I am still trying to do the calculations in my head—if everyone knew 3 people, what would the world have to look like. It is mind boggling. We have to continue to work for shared humanity.
It also reminds me of what I think will be the next important step with environmentalism. When enough people are directly affected because people they know are injured or killed by catastrophic weather events caused by climate change—then maybe we will see movement forward.
Amazing compilation of thoughts Lisa. Thanks for not only sharing this piece, but also sharing your heart and soul every day in an effort to advance these very important conversations. I’m proud to be a member of your team.
Thank you Melissa. I’m thrilled to have you on board at The Good Men Project. We need to talk about these issues more, not less.