In times of injustice, we can act or we can remain silent. When we remain silent, we may do so out of fear, out of shock or out of lack of caring. It is OK to be in fear or in shock. It is not OK to think that your silence helps the oppressed.
I get it. In moments of shock and horror, those moments when you see something that makes you cringe or something that makes you weep involuntarily, those moments when your heart drops. When your humanness feels the empathy we keep locked inside of us quietly everyday as we roam through the world, speaking seems counter-intuitive. I get it.
Take those unspeakable moments to let everything sink in and settle. Breathe and feel the pain for the experiences of others outside of yourself. Notice that the world has committed an injustice and tremble alone for the agony you wish was not humanly possible.
But then, speak. Please.
Speak, because if you do not, you are silently agreeing with a world gone mad. You are agreeing with a world gone mad and you are letting it repeat an irrepressible psychosis.
Speak, because if you do not, eventually there will be no one left to speak. Speak, because it is our future as a species, and if you envision a future which sustains everyone in a healthy and equal way, then it is necessary you stand up for that vision.
Speak, because staying silent will get us nowhere.
In the past week, in the past month, in the past year, our country has seen a succession of indefensible crimes. And these crimes have been happening over and over again. People have been speaking and standing up for their rights, and no appropriate action has been made.
Every day, our world sees a succession of indefensible crimes. If you look into the history of each place, each culture, each nation-state and you see the complex global relations that have occurred over time, it is no wonder our world is in the state in which we have arrived. But that is why it should be up to us to rewrite the direction of our world as an interconnected global system, doing anything we can to eliminate recurring structures that spew inequality.
People may speak up and stand up for their rights, but still, our world seems to remain blind.
If you must ask what rights people are speaking up for, then I must tell you the most pressing one is, of course, the right to life. But this extends beyond living. Not only are we speaking up for those who are oppressed, expressing a desire to hear the voices of the marginalized, we are speaking up for justice. Justice does not, and should not, have any boundaries. It is not something granted to those privileged enough to receive it. It does not come with entitlement. That is what it has become.
Justice has become a right granted to few. That is not its innate essence. This is why people become so angry, and rightfully so. As an American, was I not made to say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, ending with the phrase “liberty and justice for all?”
Justice is not a favor, just as silence is not an answer.
If we do not stand up for our rights as humans, and for the right to equality, especially in nations which write these rights into their creeds — “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” — then it will only get worse.
If we do not stand up for others, even those who may not look like us, speak like us or believe in the same God as us, then it will only get worse.
If we do not speak up in the face of injustice as witnesses of injustice, then it will only get worse.
If we remain silent when our deepest moral codes are violated, then we might as well give up knowing that the whole world has lost and its future has no horizon.
