Here’s a confession…
As I hear more and more about police shootings and other types of violence against youth, I sometimes find myself sliding frighteningly close to the edge of CONDITIONAL PITY. See, CONDITIONAL PITY occurs when an individual or group feels sorry for what has happened to someone else, but believes that, to some degree, the victim was simply at the wrong place, or with the wrong people, or doing the wrong thing. And that somehow, if maybe they’d been in the right place, or with the right people, or doing the right thing, this tragedy could’ve been avoided.
I admit that I’ve fallen into that mindset on occasion. I’ve had to actively steer my thinking away from trying to make some sense out of violence that is in many instances all too often a senseless act. Perhaps the reason this happens is because to do so provides us with a false sense of security. Unfortunately, to rationalize the behavior of a criminal in hopes of protecting yourself from becoming a victim as well, not only trivializes the situation, but demeans the victim, and offers no real opportunity for commiseration.
Perhaps the biggest fallacy of CONDITIONAL PITY is that as long as you (or I) relegate victims to that space, you are using victim blaming to effectively convince yourself that it could never happen to you because, you know… you avoid those types of people/places/scenarios, right?
Wrong.
It’s been 11 years sense my nephew was gunned down in a drive by shooting. He was in a car, in the driveway with his cousins, preparing to go to the movies. He wasn’t in the wrong place, or with the wrong people. He was targeted for no reason that he himself could’ve changed or avoided.
I still think about him.
And it still hurts.
It’s only when we allow ourselves to recognize and acknowledge the innocence of these victims, that we can then understand and accept that no one, myself included, is truly safe. Because, as much as we’d like to think otherwise, the world is not safe. And that reality scares people. I understand that. I get scared sometimes too. But CONDITIONAL PITY is not the answer.
Instead, let us use this truth as a call to action. Safety begins at the moment of clear perception. It’s when we decide that participation is more important than observation. Be more than a spectator. In the moment one person decides to move forward, everything around them is changed. How much more so when 100 people decide to move, or 1000?
So I’m moving forward. Maybe in seeing me move, 99 others will be inspired to join me. Maybe if you move, you’ll inspire 999 others. Wouldn’t that be worth the effort? Shouldn’t it?
Opinions welcome.
myxldove.wordpress.com 
THE FEAR FACTOR
Be the change.
Although I’ve been relatively silent on social media the last couple weeks or so, I have not been idle. I have been having conversations, both online and offline. Great conversations. Hard conversations. Conversations full of awkward silence, along with moments of beautiful insight and revelatory sorrow. But in all of them, I’ve seen progress. I’ve seen us pushing things forward… together.
In looking back over the events of the last few years, one of the recurring statements that often preceded a POC’s loss of life by an LEO was that the officer “feared for their safety”, or the safety of someone else… a neighbor, a store owner, a colleague. While we can endlessly debate the validity of that assertion, we can and should look at the part fear has played in the history of violence against people from different cultures.
It seems the from the very beginning, white Americans (and to a lesser degree, Americans in general) have been conditioned to fear those who were different from them. Or at least view them as what I call “necessary adversaries”. It reminds me of the quote, “Nothing brings people together like a common enemy.” I remember playing “Cowboys and Indians” as a child. And although no one sat me down and said, “The cowboys are the good guys, and the Indians are the bad guys” It was just understood that this was true because everything we saw reinforced this belief. From toys to books to TV shows… the kids were upset when they had to be the “indian”. When I go back and watch “Old West” films, I find that they’re rife with the indoctrination of Native American savagery. “Indians” steal food and livestock. They rape and kill and have no concern for what’s fair or honorable. A false narrative.
Conditioned to FEAR.
In much the same way, the portrayal of African Americans in media (television, film, books, advertisements, etc.) has served to reinforce the stereotypical dangerous stranger. No one may have said it straight out. But to look around is to understand that “Here are the many reasons you should be afraid of black people.” We are gang bangers who live to terrorize communities and kill indiscriminately for sport. We sell drugs to support our own drug habits, and will kill family and friends if they interfere in this process. We steal women from other races and dominate them in defiance of the authority and superiority of other races. We are lazy, seeking only comfort and convenience, to the detriment of our futures or concern for anyone other than ourselves. Another false narrative.
Conditioned to FEAR.
For too long our country has been living in denial of the underlying traditions of xenophobia that support our current racial divide. Until we acknowledge the truth of our own biases, we cannot effectively address the immeasurable damage of this “fear” that has rippled throughout history.
How then do you retrain someone to no longer fear those of whom they’ve been repeatedly told to be afraid?
In some of my conversations, I’ve heard people say that education is not the solution. To a degree, I agree with that statements. We must understand that education was never meant to fix the problem of discrimination or systemic racism. But education provides the light that exposes an issue, so that we can fully understand and see clearly what it is that we’re attempting to fix. EDUCATION becomes the antidote to fear.
The solution then becomes replacing fear with COURAGE and DETERMINATION.
Embrace COURAGE.
Show DETERMINATION.
Together we can be the catalyst for CHANGE.
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