Stop Crying ‘Racism’ For Everything In Life
It is impossible today to get through an entire news day without someone crying “Racism!” “Racist!”
It is an intellectually lazy argument. And it has lost its power to shock or awe.
There is a lot of indignation thrown around as people argue over education, health care, governance, the economy, and the direction of this country. These debates are important and necessary. But throwing race out as a reason for disagreement or misunderstanding is counterproductive. It is becoming a national embarrassment.
Every person who has struggled to survive a serious life challenge looks for an explanation as to why they have been singled out for the hardship. It is human nature to want to pin a particularly dark episode on someone or something outside of self as the cause.
But as Scott Peck wrote in the first sentence of his book, The Road Less Traveled, “Life is difficult.”
Every life is difficult at different times for different reasons. Those who learn to overcome challenge and continue to believe in—and work for—better days and times ahead become leaders among men. Martin Luther King, Jr. was such a man.
He decried inequality. He championed character over color. With his imagination, he painted pictures of a better world in which his children could walk hand-in-hand in harmony with children of other races.
He did not waste his life plotting destruction. He lost his life championing the future. “I have a dream,” he said. It was a big dream, a worthy dream. A dream that all big people of integrity and honesty support to this day.
Bitter, frightened, angry people strike out. They destroy opportunity for themselves and others. Sadly, too many of our so-called leaders have revealed their bitter, vengeful, angry tendencies in pushing agendas that are power-centric, not people-centric.
Stop it, please. Give up the persecution complex, however you feel it. Study the circumstances you want to change and appeal to the benefit of human kind in all shapes, sizes, colors, and standings. If you are unable to do this, you have nothing to add as a leader. In fact, you are not a leader.
Celebrity ‘leaders’ find a cause and create a lot of drama around it. True leaders find a need and discover a way to serve it.
Categories: CultureAbout Susan Marshall
