I write. It’s something that I love to do, and I’m usually fairly adept at finding the right words. But today, I am struggling to place my words in any sort of order that would make sense of what is happening in our country today. Regardless of your political opinions and positions, it has become quite clear that America is divided and struggling. In the wake of the election, we have seen protests and instances of hatred and discrimination surge.
At my own school, there has been an increase in incidents of harassment and even a swastika found graffitied in a bathroom. Here’s the thing, though, I say increase, but this wasn’t happening before. My campus has always been a place of love and tolerance. You know there’s a problem when you receive an email from the college president with the subject header of “Let’s get a grip.”
In short, I am saddened and angered by the newly-invigorated divisiveness and hatred present across the country, but I don’t have the right words, so here are the words of others that I found particularly moving and relevant today:
1) “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny” -(Dr. Martin Luther King).
2) “Oppression promotes the worst kind of divisiveness because it cuts us off from one another and, by silencing us about the truth, cuts us off from ourselves as well” -(Allan Johnson).
3) “Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart” -(Vaclav Havel).
4) “History shows that the proverbial rock can be rolled, if not to the top of the mountain, then at least to successive plateaus. And more importantly, simply pushing the rock in the right direction is cause for celebration. History also shows that even seemingly miraculous advances are in fact the result of many people taking small steps together over a long period of time” -(Paul Loeb).
5) “We don’t have to tackle every issue, but if we avoid all of them; if we remain silent in the face of cruelty, injustice, and oppression, we sacrifice part of our soul” -(Paul Loeb).
6) “And everyone needs forgiveness—ourselves, for not taking on every cause and winning every battle, as well as others, our neighbors and co-workers, relatives and friends, and especially those who disagree with our beliefs or accept the lies and misdirections now so commonplace in our culture” -(Paul Loeb).
7) “We can’t grow without being willing to challenge our assumptions and take ourselves to the edge of our competencies where we’re bound to feel uncomfortable” -(Allan Johnson).
8) “Plant ourselves at the gates of hope [because] “with our lives we make our answers all the time, to this ravenous, beautiful, mutilated, gorgeous world” -(Reverend Victoria Safford).
9) “The human capacity to choose how to participate in the world empowers all of us to pass along something different from what’s been passed to us” -(Allan Johnson).
10) It's our challenges and obstacles that give us layers of depth and make us interesting. Are they fun when they happen? No. But they are what make us unique” -(Ellen DeGeneres).
