I did not start this blog to have a voice about inequality – there are others more eloquent. I did not start this blog to be political – there are others more saavy. I started this blog to examine and share how to have a fulfilling life as we move through stages and seasons of our existence. I start this blog to create a community of people who wanted to find strategies to harmonize the vitality on the inside to our outward physical manifestation. More simply said, Look young, Act young, Be young. Yup. I’m fighting age.
As I thought about what this week’s blog would include, I realized my heart is too heavy to take a path of vanity or levity. This vain pursuit has to take a back seat sometimes to recenter and reclutch on what really matters so we don’t lose sight of it. So with that…we interrupt today’s regularly scheduled program…
I’ve always been an outcome-oriented person. Okay, always is a stretch. But the day that I learned that focusing on intended outcome created a higher probability of getting what you want – the lid blew off my world. I try not to get embroiled in what things look like (looting, rioting) or the emotion and anger (there’s plenty to go around) because it clouds what outcome is desired.
Equality. Justice.
Seems simple enough but you can take the human pie, slice it and dice it a million ways, and you probably won’t find equality anywhere. Maybe we don’t have it in our hearts because we seem to love ranking things. You can’t have a number one without having a “less than” number one. Maybe trying to change this is part of our mission in our lives.
I don’t profess to know for you, but for me, I think my life is and should be about being positive, helping others and being the best person I can figure out how to be. This changes daily and is a struggle daily as I go through the ups and downs of life.
In my work life, I often use the phrase “a rising tide lifts all boats”. In business, this means that if we make improvements that are global across the board, all clients benefit and the business benefits. The goal is always “to lift all boats”.
This morning, it occurred to me that this imagery works for our current state of affairs. The issue is we have very “wavy” conditions in our nation’s seas. While some are on the top of the waves, others are being slammed by the undercurrent and the breaking waves. The goal here is to level things off – to calm the seas – so everyone can enjoy the respite of floating.
If you spend your life riding the tops of the waves, can you imagine a lifetime being pummeled by them?
I cannot.
I have the mixed blessing of being bi-racial and passing for a white woman. I have experienced some of the privilege afforded to the white community, but I’ve also been subject to racism from the white community since I was a little kid. I’ve been told I am not welcome places for being different. I’ve been told I’m white enough by white friends and not asian enough or the right type of asian by the asian community. I’ve broken barriers professionally as a woman, even as I’ve struggled to survive in a male-dominated, misogynistic industry (which arguably can be most of them). I’ve been accepted and rejected in equal amounts – and I am BARELY different. What would that be like if I were VISIBLY different? I’ll never know, but I can imagine it’s not good.
As for Justice…Lady Justice is depicted as blind because someone long ago (16th century) realized that impartiality is a key component to Justice. Justice weighs the merit of fact and argument. Impartiality. Chew on that.
I’m first generation on my dad’s side and second or third on my mom’s. I am not rooted in the deep, painful wounds of this country’s racial history. But I do know that during World War II, Japanese Americans were rounded up and put into internment camps in the US. Their belongings and assets were seized and they were treated like criminals by their own country. This part of our nation’s history warranted less than a paragraph in my high school history book and I’ve seen others where it was left out all together. I was scared by the notion that our government could turn on us as citizens, on me as a person. And yet, that’s the experience of some American citizens every day of their life – from birth to death – and every day in between. It’s wrong. It just is. How can we say we are a nation that upholds Liberty as we kneel on the necks of our citizens? We can’t.
About now are you thinking that I’ve totally taken sides and I’m being political? From my perspective, I’m assessing the situation and I’m looking at facts. No sides. No political agenda. Just facts. Plain and simple. And the facts are appalling.
So what are my actions to get to the outcome?
- A commitment to always try to find a context to understand and empathize with someone else’s perspective.
- A mission to speak up and right inequality where I see it and am able.
- A reminder to understand that by the mere definition of the word, I cannot have equality unless everyone else has it too. No one gets to eat the Equality pie unless everyone gets a slice. Otherwise, there isn’t Equality. Logic.
- A resolve to elect government officials who are committed similarly to support Equality and Justice – and to hold them accountable for their actions to those ends.
Without Equality and Justice, you can’t have Liberty – at least not in any way I can imagine – for any of us. The only way for us to have the things our nation promised, we have to ALL have them. And we have to start by raising the water level for people who have never seen the horizon.
Thank you for humoring my interruption. We will return to regularly scheduled programming next week!
Stay safe!
