Your argument sucks. My argument sucks. Both sides have good intentions and faulty semantics. Everyone makes generalizations.
When
you get hurt and lash out, the other side is going to feel threatened
and won't immediately understand you're acting from a place of pain.
Therefore, when we feel attacked, how 'bout we take the time to think
about how the other person may be in pain.
If you're in a position
of power/influence or align yourself with a group holding such power,
recognize you have more responsibility for the pain you/that group has
caused another than the victim of that oppression does to acquiesce to
your comfort level.
However, if you are trying to introduce to a
group the idea that you've been persecuted by them, it tends to be
helpful to give them the benefit of the doubt that their ignorance
supersedes purposefully malicious intent.
No one is saying you
have to do anything for those who hurt you, but if you do choose to give
them far more grace and patience than they deserve, you may just help
them learn. The world will be a better place for it.
I certainly
know that if folks had just assumed I was just another stereotypical
part of an oppressive group instead of a human being, I never would've
had the chance to learn from them and grow. I have learned so much and
continue to grow.
It is not your responsibility to take the hard
road and love your enemies, but hatred and vilification has only ever
led to more hatred and vilification. Perhaps patience, forgiveness, and
mutual understanding can lead to a new and brighter day.
We must
stand together and at least try to be human beings together. Yes, this
will mean that some mountains must finally fall; they must fall swiftly
and heavily and with a mighty crash. However, this also means that the
depths will be raised up into the light, into the central square, out of
the filth and into focus. Let us see things as they are and stand in
the common dust of our place in the meta-narrative of human history.
In
saying all this, I recognize that I have come from and still bear the
stench of my ancestors. I recognize that what I have had handed to me
others have had stolen from them. I recognize that my pain and your pain
do not look the same but that it is universal that we can both be in
pain.
I hope I can help you in any way you may need me. I ask only for what I do not deserve: your continued patience.
And I still believe that the world can change.
After all, either hope is worth the risk of shifting paradigms or nothing is worth living for anymore.
