I am concerned about the direction of our nation. I am unhappy that so many of us are silent while a number among us bully those who are in the minority or just different.
Hatred stinks.
I thought we ended this behavior with the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent legislation that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, beliefs, sex, wellness, or national origin. Apparently none of this changes attitudes.
On one hand we expect Congress to pass laws to control our worst behaviors. On the other we allow the Executive branch to enforce the legislation as they wish, while we persist in spreading discord through what we label freedom of speech.
How crazy have we Americans become when we demand the right to carry arms into a McDonald’s to protect ourselves from other customers. We are afraid that there might be a crazy Muslim lurking behind a cardboard cutout of Ronald McDonald.
Even then people of the Muslim faith are some of the most trusted and honored members of our own community. Many of us depend on these hard-working professionals. I for one would not be alive today if it were not for the education, care and surgical skill of doctors who are Muslims by faith.
Growing up at First Lutheran Church on West Washington Street, I was taught that love and forgiveness was the centerpiece of Christianity. We were to treat others as we would like to be treated. Only God could judge others.
Yet our history is splattered with hatred for minorities of race, skin shade, religion, ethnicity, age, disability, sex, education, origin and any other difference that we perceive.
Why is it so important for us to push other people down, to make them feel uncomfortable or to fear for their own safety? Why do we still tell jokes about Polish people, jews, Mexicans, Canadians, hispanics, people with special needs? What is inside of us that strikes out at the down-trodden in our society?
Some 50 years ago I had a class at Dickinson College that I will never forget. The professor showed us pictures he had taken from his car window of the countryside along an old road somewhere in Pennsylvania’s Appalachia.
He asked what my classmates and I saw.
Every person including me said that we saw beautiful landscapes, open fields, some wooded areas, a stream, perhaps a place to hunt. The scenes were idyllic.
He asked what we saw in terms of the few houses that were sprinkled across the pictures.
We all agreed that they looked quaint and seemed to fit right into the landscapes.
The professor asked if we would like to live in a place like that, and we all agreed that we would.
We did not get it.
The professor then asked me in particular if I would take a closer look at the houses in the pictures and tell my classmates precisely what I saw. So I looked closely and described the houses.
It was not until then that I saw their dilapidated condition. I explained what I saw. The houses had dilapidated roofing, sheets not curtains hanging in the windows, ill fitting doors, peeling paint on the exterior, old cars and junk outside.
The professor asked who we thought lived in these houses, and the entire class described people who were lazy, dependent on the government for handouts, drunk, dirty, uncaring, probably black and every other negative description we had imagined in the 1960’s.
The professor asked how we knew.
Well, all of the clues were there… the poor condition of the house, the sheets in the windows, broken down cars in the yard.
Then the professor asked what if the persons living there had lost their jobs, became ill, had no income, had a family to support, had insufficient income to buy food, pay for electricity or even water to drink or bathe.
This time all of us were silent. We had made a judgment based on the stereotypes with which we had grown up and internalized without questioning. Why did we think only black people could live there and not whites?
The professor went on to make his point that sometimes we are too quick to look over the reality of how others might have to live. We are too quick to judge people based on their capability to make money, to be assimilated into our culture, to speak our language, or to be our color and religion.
Because the picture we see seems so idyllic, we overlook the obvious. And then when we look deeper we still make incorrect assumptions about the reality others face. It is easier to point fingers than to feel empathy.
There was no way to know who lived in those broken down structures, but it did not matter. We did not have the right to either gloss over them or to make unfounded stereotypical judgements.
Building a wall across our northern and southern borders to keep people out, will not keep us safe. Evil doers who want to do us harm will still get into the country. And they will not care about our differences.
What we need is what my long-departed college professor expressed all of those years ago. We need to take notice of the needs, strengths and weaknesses of our fellow human beings, help where and when we can, and stop making assumptions about the lives of others.
We need each other. We need to rejoice in our differences. We do not need to hate each other for them.
Bill Gindlesperger is a central Pennsylvanian, Dickinson College graduate, Pennsylvania System Of Higher Education (PASSHE) Governor, former Shippensburg University Trustee, awarded numerous patents, as well as Founder and Chairman of eLynxx Solutions. eLynxx provides cloud-software for automated sourcing and managing of mail marketing, swag, packaging, and all things print. He is a board member, campaign advisor, successful entrepreneur, published author and commentator. He can be reached at Bill.Gindlesperger@eLynxx.com.
