Yesterday I signed off social media feeling quietly heartbroken. What a mess. Having collected my thoughts and myself, I have observed the following:
1. Celebrity Culture v. Community
2. Elitism v. Commonality
3. Decree v. Dialogue
4. The oppressed co-opting oppressive tactics
5. Advising v. Informing
6. Followers v. Fellows
7. The End v. The Means
That for the moment is the framework that defines my grief. We have the chance to be brothers and sisters in truth, in joy, and in searing sorrow. So many seem to prefer pedestals over people — forgetting they are people too. Abuse of power lays the groundwork for grooming.
There is no them and us, there is just us. Your sweet low soft voice is as important as the harsh, high, and loud ones. To be invisible as you whisper your wounds is to be unseen — again. You are not a peg in a platform. You is a person.
I’ll never become accustomed to this world where “likes” mean more than losses; where charisma is valued more than character; where power is so obliquely perverse. We have it backwards — badly. But we seem to like it that way. I cannot tell you to the degree this makes me weep. It does.
Help that dehumanizes a person is not help at all. All help informs, empowers, partners, and elevates. There is no room for pedestals on common ground — only people entering the struggle for the recovery of their humanity with other people.
How to Human 101:
1. Acknowledge the presence of other humans.
2. Be aware if your own power and constantly seek to use it to elevate your fellow humans.
3. Share what power you have with the less powerful.
4. No one who cares about your platform cares about your person.
5. Learn not only of the ways that humans can betray and brutalize each other — but also beautify.
6. Be a balm to the former and be a co-creator in discovering the latter.
7. Remember your own personhood. You are not a product, a cog in a wheel, or a machine. You is a person.
That’s it for now.
I’m still choking on the “bloodied dust” that I am trying to crawl out of.
From where you say?
From people, who pray, while they prey, from their platforms.