#ifthereshellbelow

I woke up at 3:30am today determined to publish a piece on my professional blog entitled #GSD- Getting Shtuff Done. It's an article that I've ironically been wanting to publish for weeks now, and have not done so partially because spending time in the #ReflectingPool has been so rewarding. The thing is, the content for the article is already written- it's a matter of spending 30 minutes editing for voice and formatting for presentation before it’s ready to publish.

Every once in a while, there comes a moment where the news in the world just levels me, and it decides to make what I have planned for the day feel so small in comparison. This morning at 3:30am was one of those moments.

Hard Times Ain’t Easy

While I saw several other just as informative tweets in my media stream, this one from @charlie_simpson was ultimately the one that jarred me to write:

I don't want black men shot at traffic stops. I don't want cops shot by snipers. I don't want kids shot at school. I don't want any of this.

I have heard a lot about school shootings over the past months (and years, frankly), and seen their effects given my line of work as an educator. I had also heard about the stories of #PhilandoCastile in Minneapolis and #AltonSterling in Baton Rouge earlier this week. Sadly, like so many other Americans I had become desensitized to it all. A numbness that only repeated examples of such trauma can cause.

News of these two men’s tragedies brought an interesting mix of songs to mind:

Curtis Mayfield’s (Don't Worry) If There's Hell Below, We’re All Gonna Go: “Hurry- people running from their worries while the judge and the juries dictate the law that's partly flawed. Cat calling, love balling, fussing and cussing. Top billing now is killing- for peace, no one is willing. Kind of make you get that feeling.”

Shock G’s line in 2Pac’s I Get Around: “Just another black man caught up in the mix, trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents.”

Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals’ Call It What It Is (Murder): “They shot him in the back- now it's a crime to be black. So don't act surprised when it gets vandalized.”

I had not heard the story until this morning of the police and protesters shot in Dallas during a peach march, as it had gone on last night as I slept. Awakening to hear of these deaths is saddening to say the least. Though for me it’s saddening in a bit different way than that which lies on the surface.

I recall a quote from Game of Thrones that immediately sums up what makes it so saddening from my perspective: “Violence is a disease, and one does not cure it by spreading it to more people.”

The more I think about it, the less I fully agree with that quote- though I'm grateful that hearing it caused me to think.

I do not see violence as a disease, but rather more like a symptom of a disease, like a fever or a sore throat. The actual (or in this case metaphorical) disease- the underlying virus that causes the symptom of violence- is fear.

There Goes The Fear Again

It was fear the police caught from the community that led policemen to note and respond to behavior they deem suspicious, like these cases involving a broken taillight or someone purportedly threatening another community member with violence.

It was the fear the men caught from the police that led these two men to behave in an overly cautious (though perhaps defensive and therefore by definition antagonistic) manner when being questioned by said police, as they were unsurprisingly wary of what might happen as a result of their discussion.

It was the fear the police caught from these men that led these officers to escalate the situation through their actions, and ultimately raise their arms toward these men, fire on them, and kill them.

It was the fear these men caught from the police that widened their eyes as bullets rained down on them from the officers’ guns.

It was the fear that communities caught from these men that led to mass protests, not only in the cities of Minneapolis and Baton Rouge but also other high-density areas like the march in Dallas. 

I don’t I know what drove every community member in attendance at the march in Dallas to be there. I have no doubt that many there were driven by a desire to show and feel compassion for the families of these two young men and all of the others affected by these recent tragedies.

At the same time, I have no doubt that many in attendance also came out of fear. Fear that it could have just as easily happened to them.

And either way, it was fear that police caught from the community that led them to show up and protect the interests of the peace. The concept of protection implies they had a fear of potential danger that might result from the assembly of the people, no matter how peaceful its intention.

It was fear that this shooter caught from policemen that led to what he imagined to be retaliation against policemen in the form of gunfire. These officers ultimately had nothing in common with the police in Minneapolis and Baton Rouge aside from the basics of the badges on their chests.

It was fear that everyone in attendance caught from this shooter that quickened their strides as they sought cover from the hailstorm of bullets peppering the area from the shooter’s gun.

It’s the results of that fear caught by the media that get spread back into the community, which then perpetuates the underlying fear that began the cycle in the first place.

It’s the community’s fear that the police catch.

It's all of this fear that resides within each of us and gets fed back to us. Ultimately, this fear gets perpetuated over and over again each time we decide to act from our own self-interests instead of acknowledging, listening to, and learning from the perspectives of others.  

It Takes Every Kind Of People

I live a privileged life. It's privileged in many ways, probably the biggest of which is that I am usually able to put the equivalent of blinders up to most of what's happening out in #thegreatbigworld. 

Here’s why I do so: With 7 billion people on the planet right at this instant, and another 100 billion who have lived before, even a conservatively average estimated age of 20 years’ life experience per person means there are 2 trillion years’ worth of life experiences out there to be heard about. That's 17,520,000,000,000,000 hours’ worth of perspectives to learn from. This article shares what 14 trillion of something looks like- imagine 1,000 times that, and now we’re talking about the number of human life-hours there have been on this earth.

What’s more: roughly 10% of the total hours’ worth of human life of all time is here on Earth right now. All ready to be shared directly by their primary sources. Right now.

Let that sink in.

The scope of that realization is why more recently I find myself keeping my blinders on to the news most of the time. Spending my hours listening to someone else's third-party account of some other people’s #farfaraway life experiences is a telephone game I do not wish to entangle myself in. Focusing on those stories also keeps me from engaging in the more local opportunities to affect change in the same related arena. So I keep my blinders on and move forward.

I am ultimately grateful for that privilege in many ways- it means that when tragedy strikes (no matter how big or how small), I have the ability to continue to strive toward making a difference on the issues and challenges that are within my localized control. From a sciency perspective, the violence is a dependent variable. It's an effect- not a cause. I try to pour my energy into affecting change in the causes of this violence, knowing that if it has already happened there is little I can do to affect change in that effect.

Knowing and believing in the ways in which we’re all one big team, when I grant myself the grace to ignore some of the issues occurring well outside my locus of control, I am able to focus in on the tasks at hand that I believe are making a difference, albeit on a small scale. Tending to partnerships with educators and young people both in my local area and across the country. Stepping up to do the heavy lifting of leadership work with our local animal shelter. Offering to come to the aid of local community members who #neednotwant someone's assistance. These are the minutes that turn to hours that fill my days. (Seriously, doing these things and writing about them are pretty much all I ever seem to spend any time doing.)

None of this is meant as some #humblebrag, nor is it in order to seek validation from others, to defend my position, or really to make any of this about me. Like every other post on every other blog, this account is but one perspective. I wish to share it such that others may learn from the way I see the world, and also so that their perspectives may help to mold and shape my thinking in the future.

I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing

So what do I take away from all of this? Why write this today?

Here's why: I think all of us need to give ourselves permission to accomplish what we have been put here to do, and not feel guilted or shamed into changing that agenda in order to meet someone else's insecurities that feed their desires for control. As I heard one person say earlier this week, we need to refuse to be stuck behind other people’s foolishness any longer. And this label of foolishness applies not only to those perpetrators of the crimes, but also all of those who shame others via social media and contribute to the same fear, self-loathing, and foolishness that they say they're trying to protest.

I share my perspective so that those who read it can hear that not all of those absent from the figurative or literal protest lines are doing so out of self-interest, cowardice, or worse yet agreement with the “other” side.

I for one am absent from those lines because I'm busy. Busy helping to form other lines. Busy doing what I can do in my locus of control to impact the #biglittleworld in my backyard. Busy helping to stop fear, hate, and ignorance from driving so much of how we interact with each other. And ultimately busy trying to cure those viral diseases with the only antidotes that have ever seemed to work: to listen, to learn, to love.