Recently there have been so many events where innocent people lose their lives. We can not seem to get through a newscast without being informed about some sort of senseless and terrible act resulting in harsh injury or even death. Many of these instances deal with issues of gender, religion, and/or race. People are people and they deserve to live as people. We should not live in fear of going to a movie, to school, or downtown for a night out.
Keke (Lauren) Palmer took to her Snapchat story to voice her thoughts on these recent occurrences. What she has to say is so important. She expresses that we need to come together through a collective understanding of suffering and humanity needs to be united so our children and their children have a better future. People like MLK, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela never got to see their works come to fruition, but that does not mean they never made a difference. We need to distance ourselves from systematic brainwashing that tells us we should be afraid of people of a certain race or religion. All around the world we should be living our lives fully with beating hearts, unafraid of being bullied, put down, injured, or even killed for the things we can’t control or even for the thoughts we hold in our heads as our way of life or opinion. We should be living our lives integrated with each other through struggle and strive to respect our neighbor, to support and stand with each other in times of hatred and turn our conversations in to actions. Using our hearts as common ground.
Can you imagine if we never used the color of our skin, our political views, gender, or our religion to create divides? The world has fallen far too deep into a very toxic obsession with these things. Why are we so focused on others who are just trying to do their own things, or focused on things that people themselves can not change (like their skin color)? There are people out there who want to love and support everyone for who they are and who they want to be.
Humans come with different shades of skin. Some are shorter while others tower with the trees. Some have bruises or scars. Others may think in a different way. But guess what? We all have hearts. Beating hearts. The contents of a body that has more melanin? The same as a person with less melanin. Example; one beating heart is in a body working with a brain that thinks more conservatively. Another beating heart keeps a human alive in tandem with a brain that creates more of a democratic opinion. But they are both hearts nonetheless.
Hearts should not be stopped because what covers them looks different from another hearts human vessel. A Heart should not stop because it is housed in a boy’s body with a girl’s mind looking for answers. A heart should not beat in a jail cell five years falsely accused of rape while another heart who actually committed a brutal sexual assault sits only six months in a cell because his pigment is of a lighter shade. A heart should not stop beating because of a stereotype applied to it’s human inhibitor. A person’s heart should not be stopped because it loves another of the same gender. A heart should not be stopped because the person it provides life for kneels down in a Mosque. A heart should not be stopped because a hoodie on a dark night “looks suspicious.” Children’s hearts should not be stopped because they went to school. A heart of a man does not need six bullets to stop beating and should not have one bullet to begin with.
Hearts should not be stopped. Hearts should be beating. But the people with beating hearts should not be beating each other. Our own hearts must beat on and we need to use them to serve justice.
“So that there should be no division in the body, but that its members should have mutual concern for one another. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” -Corinthians 12:25-26
