People deserve more than tolerance from one another.
Every day I grow more and more aware (and sometimes weary) of how dearly important language is. Words can permeate bodies and settle in to stay if left alone to fester in environments that don't nurture healthy growth. As hateful language can harm, passive and inconclusive language can damage.
As for "tolerance" and "tolerating" human difference? Come on: "Tolerance" is the space you allow a flaccid leaf to occupy when it falls onto your pant leg in the middle of fall; paying it no attention, absolutely no mind.
Tolerance is not enough for a human being.
“Tolerance” is what you give the inchworm you walk past on the spring pathway at college; a passive allowance you provide a being for which you have very little care. A being whom you may not actively crush with your foot if not provoked, but whom you may flick off the cliff of your shoulder even if so blissfully unprovoked.
"Tolerance" is not enough for a human being.
“Tolerance” is the cold weather you “endure” for a season; that which you blow your nose at, bristle and grimace whilst walking to work alongside its presence, but “allowing” it nonetheless because it is only for that one season.
"Tolerance" is not enough for a human being.
I’ve been hearing this minimalist language of “tolerance” utilized in the political context of “respectability” and responses to social issues for quite a while, even as a basis for well-meaning movements. In my opinion, its application is oftentimes weak, and akin to that of the superficiality of the idea behind most "Southern hospitality". The habit of sticking to this passive idea of "tolerance", and nothing else, to respect human beings, is so oversimplified that it might as well be fake; akin to gaining something at someone else’s expense, hiding something nasty and hurtful to someone else with a smile, without the consequences of facing that hurtful reality because the one in power doesn't have to, or exhibiting a passive front with no intention of truly caring for someone or something else, because it may seem that it just isn't necessary to one's well-being in that moment. It is claiming "allyship" as a label that is supposed to make you feel better about yourself without pushing yourself to act more for something bigger than you, to stop turning away from the pain of others because of their differences.
“Tolerance”, when it comes to human diversity, is not even the bare minimum; it does not reach an acceptable level of respect when human health and lives are at stake. To use only "tolerance" as a basis for your idea of respect for someone else is such an ignorant bush-off-the-shoulder that it is almost a reversal of the process of respect you have a responsibility as a human being to give others. When you "tolerate" me and nothing else, I hear you telling me you believe me to be no more deserving of anything other than just that; an allowance. I hear that you are allowing something you just passively acknowledge, or maybe kind of dislike to begin with (in the least extreme of circumstances) the right to an existence that you somehow believe you are entitled to give.
Do you simply "tolerate” your neighbor of a different skin tone, ignoring your privileges over theirs, and patting yourself on the back for your personally-perceived lack of involvement in systemic racism, all the while turning your head while they suffer multiple forms of inequality under the hand of the very law that serves you?
Do you “tolerate” Trump-voter's xenophobia and sexism, somehow supporting the idea that single-issue voter tunnel vision is ok when it blinds people to their hatred and harm to others, because you have an exclusive perception of "free speech"?
Do you shout “alliance” at the top of your lungs built on some abstract idea of “togetherness”, and then refuse to join your friend of color under their leadership to fight the systemic justices that plague them?
As your friend admits how long they’ve been bullied by those who disrespect their sexuality or gender expression, do you really think you’ve become their ally because you “tolerate that gay couple you know"?
Do you refrain from conversations about the very real systemic reasons for their exclusion, giving yourself a gold star because in a world where queer civilians are mentally and physically harmed for their identities, at least straight people are "tolerating" gay marriage licenses?
Do you really believe your “tolerance” is a gift to the Syrian refugee across the street, while your political ignorance elects Republican congressmen who support mandates nothing short of a Hitler-esque registry of Muslims?
If you claim you’re tired of being told to recognize your privilege and asked to act upon it, I don’t believe your exhaustion.
If you grit your teeth across the pew to tolerate another being’s religious differences, I don’t believe your preaching of "togetherness".
If you claim you “tolerate” difference “out of love", I don’t believe your love.
Humans are not flaccid leaves, inchworms, chilled winters, sweat on your back.
This passive expression of "tolerance" as some kind of weak minimum monthly payment in order to be considered an "ally" to anyone, needs to be tackled. It does not demand the kind of love human beings are entitled to.
We deserve more than "tolerance".
My reader, I hope you don’t ever accept just “tolerance”.
I pray you don’t ever consolidate your woes for the bare minimum.
Please don’t ever forget your worth in place of compromise for someone else’s blind and ignorant comfort.
Demand respect.
Demand support.
Demand not only acceptance, but acknowledgement, care, listening, appraisal.
You are worth more than just “tolerance".
We need to set fire to that word, enliven it to grow into something more; real love for each other.
You. Are. Worth. More.
