What do those words mean?
What do words even matter now, when actions are speaking louder than words?
What happens when we forget to communicate, and forget to elaborate and forget that we’re all human beings? It's looking like we start to solve our problems with guns and violence and we don’t set our differences aside. Even though if we did we’d realize we all have the same blood running through our veins.
What happens then?
“A Brave and Startling Truth” was a poem written in 1995 before a lot of horrible things happened, and after a lot. I think that Maya Angelou knew what she was talking about. Maybe I just like to think she did because she’s one of my favorite poets, or maybe because millions agree she’s a literary genius, but she leaves me with a question. What do these words she’s written mean?
A Brave and Startling Truth.
What does it mean when we can’t even realize the truth, when we can’t see what’s right in front of our face because we’re too afraid to realize, to acknowledge that we’re a flawed human race? What does it mean when we’d rather solve our battles with weapons and viciousness rather than with words? Tell me. I need to know – what does it all mean?
Tell me what does it mean when innocent people are gunned down in the streets. What does it mean people say:
“It’s because they’re black”
No.
“It’s because they’re white”
No.
“It’s because they’re different”
No.
Our differences make us who we are, our differences make us unique, our differences should make us able to join hands around the world – that’s what our world is supposed to be like.
But our world is not that fairy tale, and this fairy tale is turning into a unhappy nightmare.
Honestly, I don’t know what to say anymore.
I don’t know what to say to the policemen in Dallas who were shot because someone wanted justice, because of their profession. I don’t know what to say to families of the two black men who were killed this week just because of their skin color, because no one is taking accountability for their deaths. I don’t know what to say to this.
I don’t know what to say when people ask me how I feel. I don’t know how to explain the anger bubbling up in my gut because why can’t we all just get along?
I know the world isn’t perfect. I know we aren’t all magically going to get along like we did in middle school and make a cake filled with rainbows, but why can’t we try? There’s nothing stopping us from trying except our own stubbornness.
Just because we can’t get along doesn’t mean we just sit here, and wonder. Doesn’t mean we just question and ponder. While we do that, who's doing something about these problems, about the atrocities?
It doesn’t mean that we don’t fix our flawed laws, it doesn’t mean we don’t protest, it doesn’t mean we are powerless from doing anything. It doesn’t mean we don’t take action.
Speaking out only goes so far. If this last week has taught me anything it’s that actions are speaking louder than words. So everyone needs to take action as well.
"A Brave and Startling Truth" by Maya Angelou is more reminiscent in my mind today than ever.
How can I speak about the horrors of this world, without realizing that no one knows this truth? How can we talk about victory, and presidential races, when no one is waving the white flag of truce? When we’re all just gunning down each other until there’s nothing left but bones and ashes. How can we deny children from other countries refuge in our home, when thier home has been destroyed?
How can people say your life doesn’t matter? Just because you’re gay, just because you’re black, just because you’re different than the human norm, when no one even knows what the human norm is.
How can we say we’re for world peace, when we put guns in children’s hands and call it self protection? How can we say we’re still for world peace when we don’t acknowledge the fact that world peace doesn’t mean holding a gun up to everyone’s head and calling it safety?
World peace means – well I don’t know what world peace means.
But I know it doesn’t mean this.
Maybe you say I’m being idealistic or maybe you say I’m being unrealistic and maybe you say I’m just a child and I know nothing. Maybe I don’t.
But I know the way things are going isn’t working, and I don’t know how much more my heart can take. Can take of these murders, of these tragedies, of these #prayfor …
I’m just a young girl in this world. I don’t know much, and I haven’t lived that long. But I know something is wrong here. And I know others think that too. So instead of just thinking it’s wrong, we need to stand up and take action.
Because after all, actions are speaking louder than words, even if those words are a brave and startling truth.
