If you want to see the change, be the change. A white cop put his knee on another man’s neck — a black man’s neck — for nearly nine minutes until he died and it was horrific. It made my heart sick. There is righteous rage in the world right now and we as a society are demanding justice, change, and accountability.
But how do we channel our rage into productive action? I think, simply, we begin with ourselves. As my recent No Barriers Podcast guest, Neuroscientist Dr. Beau Lotto reminded me, “Our brains are built for adaptation. You can have agency in the direction of your adaptability and choose what to attend to. The world does change. And so, you have to change with it. Being adaptable increases the possibility of thriving.”
If we want to live in a country where the color of a person’s skin does not define how they are treated, where inequality is extinguished at its core, then we, especially those like myself, white and privileged, must be unabashedly willing to leave our comfort zone. We have to go see what’s on the other side of that big hill we’ve been hiding behind. We cannot retreat into the same safe pathways of our mind and only dig those channels deeper – succumbing to further fear or denial. Now is the time to educate ourselves and get a bit raw and uncomfortable.
This is an unprecedented opportunity to understand each other and build community on a deeper level. Vote. Read. Listen. Donate. Give. Together we can come out stronger on the other side.
