Last week, hours after a deranged lunatic opened fire on police officers assisting a necessary #BlackLivesMatter protest through the streets of Dallas, I couldn’t take anymore. I had reached my limit of the horrific.
To say we live in troubled times is an understatement. Not a week goes by without something awful happening somewhere around the world.
From Orlando to Nice, Charleston to Istanbul, terrorist attacks occur more often and in such rapid succession we as a society don’t have time to absorb everything before we have to mourn the next. To combat the flood of terrible, we react quickly, send out something on social media and wait for the next awfulness to show up on our feed.
The world we live in has become a constant cycle of grief. We speed through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance only to be reintroduced to grief too soon. We accept it because what other choice do we have? It’s a white flag type of acceptance. The throw your hands up in the air like a parent who has run out of options on how to keep their child from smearing their poop on the walls in defiance acceptance.
The appalling is not limited to terrorism. We’ve seen innocent men shot and killed by people trusted to protect and serve, rapists and abusers receive light sentences for reasons unbelievable to rational human thought. Our presidential race has turned into a reality show with the fate of our country held in the balance by media outlets more concerned with ratings than truth-telling.
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So in a moment of repugnance fatigue, I went off the grid.
I was using my position of privilege to disconnect from the atrocious. I hate that word, “privilege,” by the way ,as much as I accept it. I am a left-leaning, upper-middle class man of multiple minority ethnicities living in a town widely considered a melting pot. I know I have it better than most. I’m a business owner, homeowner, and despite sometimes receiving looks of condescension based on my appearance, I have never once feared for my life from a police officer. I have never once felt the struggle to receive equality. But the word, “privilege” evokes a defense mechanism that makes me feel at fault for my current standing in the world, rather than a desire to make others around me feel the sort of “privilege” I receive. Unfortunately, it is the word that best describes my “advantage”.
But I digress. I used my “benefit” to disconnect from this abhorrent world. I stopped looking at my news feed, posted picture of my happy, blessed life on social media to spread what I felt was love and hope, rather than despair and hate. I avoided the deplorable, because I could.
Who was I helping?
There are millions of people who wish they could avoid the hideous. Millions of people who wish they could live a life without personal connections to the ghastly. Yet they can’t. Their lives are intertwined with the heinous or the possibility of the monstrous like Rapunzel’s braid.
As a father, my goal in life is solely to make my children’s lives the best I can. To do that, I need to make the world they live in the best and safest possible. It was at that moment, I made a pledge. It was the only way where I could actively be helping to make a better future while directly affecting what I could control.
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Gun safety, LGBTQ rights, #BlackLIvesMatter, civil rights, human rights are things that are much bigger than what I can achieve from my “beneficial” place. But I can help lead my children down a bigger path to make the world they live in better by their example.
I pledge to teach my children real love so that they are compassionate to all people, not just the one’s they know or are familiar to their lifestyle.
I pledge to teach my children forgiveness, so that hate and wrath do not overtake their body and heart.
I pledge to teach my children how to protect themselves, not to ward off people looking to attack them, but to help those who are unable to do so.
I pledge to teach my children to be vulnerable, so they can be molded by life’s lesson and not resistant to them.
I pledge to teach my children how to be a feminist, so they know inequality is not limited to color but gender as well.
I pledge to teach my children about all religions, so they can be tolerant and accepting of all beliefs, and non-believers.
I pledge to teach my children to be outspoken, to use their voice when others cannot.
I pledge to teach my children to be introspective, to use silence to listen when others choose to yell.
I pledge to teach my children history as told by the natives of those lands and combine that with the whitewashed textbooks given at schools.
I pledge to teach my children curiosity, so they always looks for answers, both in the open and hidden.
I pledge to teach my children humility, so they know there’s always room to grow.
I pledge to teach my children confidence, so they can stand proud for who and what they represent.
I pledge to teach my children flexibility, because the things they believe in may change.
I pledge to teach my children to be firm, so that they won’t be easily persuaded into something they don’t believe.
I pledge to teach my children to search for humor, because laughter can change everything.
I pledge to teach my children to not hold back tears, because there’s no shame in crying.
I pledge to teach my children to be and see, so that experiences don’t pass them.
I pledge to continue to add to this list. To do my part to help make the world a better place so that the next time something unspeakable happens instead of shutting off the world I can open it wider and absorb everything from denial to anger to bargaining to depression, but not acceptance, I’m done with acceptance.
Fuck that.
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Photo Credit: Author
These pledges will truly help to raise wonderful human beings.
If all parents could truly take that pledge and believe in it, the world would surely be more tolerant and accepting