Take a look around you the next time you’re out to eat, or on the subway, or even walking down the street. How long does it take before you make eye contact with another person? How do we fill our time in line at Starbucks or the grocery store? I am not exempt from this – I spent just as much time on my phone as the next person, but lately I’ve become more self-critical of this behavior. Everywhere you go, people are talking about the next big thing: the new phone, the new laptop, or the new social media platform, but no one seems to be talking about the next big idea or the next big solution to the problems that so many of our things have created. A few weeks ago, I participated in an event that the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s Social Justice League (SJL) held on campus. It was a national student-led day of action to bring attention to some of the issues that have become more present following the election of Donald Trump to the presidency. I am new to the University. I started out at a community college, where students mostly show up, go to class, and return home. What I’ve noticed from being on campus here at UM-Dearborn is that I’ve found the sense of academic community that I have longed for since graduating from high school. I am surrounded by a beautifully diverse student body. This allows for a dialogue that I felt was impossible at the community college level. This community gives me space to ask tough questions and work through the answers face-to-face.
At the SJL event, the floor was offered to anyone who wanted to speak. I’m not one for public speaking, but I felt I had something to say. As I looked into the crowd of people, I saw a man holding a sign that read, “We need a revolution of values,” and that prompted me to speak on what I am reiterating here. That sign is something I’ve thought about often since I saw it. After a bit of research, I learned its words were first uttered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his “Beyond Vietnam” address, given in 1967. Dr. King said,
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin—we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.”
When I read Dr. King’s call for a shift in worldview, I felt I his words ring true now more than ever. Now is not the time for Google or Siri or Facebook memes that pretend to be fact. It is not enough to look up “Islam” or “Black Lives Matter.” It is time to reach out to our neighbors. It is time to build bridges and ask questions of one another as people who are part of the same human tribe and not as strangers or opposites. Some of the best advice I've ever been given was from a fictional character of Harper Lee's creation. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus reminds Scout, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." A tweet or Facebook post cannot teach you compassion, kindness, or empathy. If you want to know something about the human condition of someone unlike yourself, look up from the screen. Look into the eyes of a stranger and ask, “How are you?” A good friend of mine once told me that at church, something they ask each other is, "How is it with your soul?" We should care enough to ask one another these questions. We should care enough to know their answers.
The call for a revolution of values has prompted me to consider how we are approaching the various issues our nation faces. It is baffling how often folks jump to politicizing problems and ideas, when really, the focus should be on humanizing the issues. We need to stop talking about Flint in terms of money and start talking about Flint in terms of human life. We need to stop viewing human life as external to the struggle, whatever the struggle may be, and start viewing human life for what it is: the heart and soul of all issues we face as a planet. It is long overdue for us to set aside our political parties and affiliations and make a genuine effort to introduce some amount of humanity into our discussions. Could you imagine what these conversations would be like if they happened in coffee shops or places of worship or community centers instead of through Facebook comment sections or angry tweets?
It is time for us to be softer and more tender with each other and ourselves. Instead of posting a status that says, “If you voted for ____, delete me now,” open the door for a conversation with that person. We have turned away from these conversations because they are hard. They require patience, grace, and a willingness to not only hear, but to truly listen to what is on the minds and in the hearts of folks who are different from ourselves. Tough conversations require that we open ourselves to having our views and beliefs challenged. They require that we open ourselves to the potential for acknowledging that we were wrong about something. They require that we say things like, “You’re right, I’m sorry, and I still love and/or respect you.”
One of the children I babysit, who is six years old, watches a show whose opening theme says something like, “we celebrate our mistakes.” The last time I babysat her, she said, “Miss Jordan, why do they celebrate their mistakes?” This caught me off guard. When you spend time with young children, you are in a position where you have the power to shape their very impressionable views. I told her that when we make mistakes, it means we’re learning, and that we now know a different way to do or say something for next time. She said, “So it’s like when you say something and someone tells you it hurt their feelings, you don’t say it again because you never want to hurt their feelings.” After some more discussion, she said, “Oh, I get it. Mistakes make us better!” This was a learning moment for me, a moment where she re-shaped my views on something. I am hard on myself and my own fallibility, and in that moment, I was brought back to a very important truth. I bring this up not only because it is a reminder of why it is important to make mistakes with ourselves and each other, but because it is a reminder that when we aren’t distracted, when we are fully present, we learn in the most unlikely of places from the most unlikely of people. It can happen anywhere, with anyone, if only we are open to it. I am afraid we are becoming a nation, a world, even, of strangers. We need to stop opening apps and messages and begin opening doors to productive, constructive discourse.
Now I don’t want to knock the advancements and progress technology has afforded us as a society. Surgery is becoming less invasive with new medical technologies. Homebound children can “go to school” from home using robot proxies. I can check in with my family, who are spread all over the country, in the matter of seconds. In some ways, we miss out on less than we would without these advancements. In others, we are missing out entirely. Though technology has given us so much with respect to collecting information and expanding our knowledge, we cannot allow it to act as a stand-in for human interaction. Nothing can replace human community, empathy, or compassion. The author Andrew Boyd wrote,
“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.”
I invite you all to sit at the table with me, phones and tablets aside, to hold space for each other and begin these tough conversations. I invite you to begin acknowledging one another’s nuanced, varied ways of being and living and loving. The social activist Ruby Sales reminds us to ask of each other, “Where does it hurt?” Healing is a collective. It is a dialogue, an extended hand, and a willingness to listen with open hearts and the contents of our spirit bared before our fellow woman or man. Let us begin our revolution, and may it begin and end with radical compassion.
