We’ve spent the past three months in quarantine against Covid-19, social distancing ourselves from the threat of disease that came to our shores from a dark and primitive place, when all the while the ugly truth is that right here at home we’ve allowed the wet markets of ignorance to work overtime.
We lament the Wuhan “wet markets”, so-called ground zero of the Coronavirus. Primitive places where primitive ideas of how and what to eat offer breeding grounds for myriad viral plagues wrecking havoc throughout the world. Why can’t these people just stop this primitive thinking?!
Mmm…
Breaking news from Minnesota… I mean Georgia… I mean Ferguson… I mean, oh well… It’s not really “breaking” news. It’s not really news at all anymore it seems. It’s just another Monday.
The racism we are witnessing has not always occurred in full view. While I am frequently annoyed with ubiquitous camera phones, I thank God for the technology that allows us to turn the lights on these cockroaches. We must remain vigilant against them and their viral form of hate. They may scamper from the light, but they find refuge in the baseboards of humanity, and grow in the lowest basin of our nature. It’s in those dark, damp places where this uniquely American brand of racism takes form. This inexplicable disregard for human life isn’t genetic; it must be learned. Passed from person to person, it can only survive with permission. And those of us who know better must relentlessly refuse to grant that permission. In our words, our actions, and our laws, we must say ”no.”
How is it that in the 21st Century, this continues to plague our lives? How is it that, in the land of innovation, the one “Giant Leap” we cannot seem to take is to end this? Like a helpless child preyed on by a stranger in a mall, we’ve allowed abject fear to take us by the hand and lead us to believe that by building up walls, and tearing down people, we somehow make our place in this world more secure. The cruel joke is on us. It has created just the opposite. Fear creates insecurity. Insecurity creates anger. Anger creates hate. Hate leads back to insecurity.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Why is it we don’t demand more of each other? Why is it we believe that by knocking down our neighbor, we think we stand taller? Why do we believe the lie that hate will win.
We’ve spent the past three months in quarantine against Covid-19, social distancing ourselves from the threat of disease that came to our shores from a dark and primitive place, when all the while the ugly truth is that right here at home we’ve allowed the wet markets of ignorance to work overtime. Sometimes right out in the open in our own institutions. Breeding and growing and cultivating viral hate-filled ideas that cannot be prevented with simple masks and gloves.
No, in order to flatten this curve it will take something other than PPE. It will take an understanding that hate doesn’t work. It has failed in every example throughout history. Hating blacks doesn’t work. Hating whites doesn’t work. Hating libs… hating cons… hating poor people… rich people, people from the coasts, people from the heartland, people from the south, people from the north, people who watch FoxNews, people who watch CNN… Hate. Doesn’t. Work. And if we continue to pass this down to our sons and daughters, teaching them hate and disregard, we consign them to a life of failure.
Interestingly, there appears to already be a vaccine for this plague. Dr. King spoke of it. So did Jesus. And Ghandi. Even John Lennon. But it was Shakespeare who offered a most succinct creed for us all: “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” For all his verbosity, Billy sure could boil it down!
In the meantime, it’s our moral obligation to keep turning on the lights, ripping up the floorboards, and refusing to grant permission to those who would infect our world.
Godspeed.
