What Has Been Squandered
Yessa and I are spending Spring Break with Paula, Kel, and the girls and dogs in VA. Much more on that in future posts, but it’s relevant because this area is more richly diverse than where I normally live, or at least the particular location where I live. (That’s on Buds and me and where we chose to live.)
I ran to the grocery store this morning for a couple items, and had a funny interaction and quick conversation with a Black man as we walked out that left us both smiling. As I was loading the car he even took the time to drive past to wish me a “blessed day.”
My heart swelled with light joy and then I felt such a pang of grief.
If white people could only understand what we have squandered and lost by our insistence in clinging to white supremacy and the ugliness and hatred it engenders.
Not that long ago, in this country and this place, and still in places in this country; our conversation would not just have been forbidden, it could have been deadly.
How sickening and disgusting, and what a tremendous loss; not just of life but of connection and ideas. My life would have been less rich and much less “blessed” without that brief connection this morning.
During Black History Month in February, someone I follow on Twitter pointed out that it’s fantastic that we celebrate the brilliant Black minds for that month, often celebrating the adversity they had to overcome, and yet…what might they have accomplished if they had not had to overcome that adversity? What if their brilliance had not been thwarted early and often.
White people, if we can’t call each other into an inclusive mindset because it is the right thing to do, the moral, equitable, joyful thing to do; then how about if we do it because of what we are losing. What if we realize it is OUR loss.
FYI, if you aren’t reading Heather Cox Richardson’s updates everyday, you are losing out on fantastic insight and honest history. She highlights today that we have turned from the righteous path many times in our history. Can we finally learn from that, please.
I hope you have a blessed day.
