How can you look in the mirror and not see my humanity?
If it's all too much, don't read this. Or maybe do.
Hey you.
How is your heart?
The world is loud and heavy. It always is, but even more so now.
I wasn’t sure if I should add to the online outcry or not. I don’t have the right words (whatever right means). I am overwhelmed, I feel angry, I feel so much and I feel numb at the same time. You probably feel a bit similar?
It was a Tuesday morning in April 2020 when I heard the news of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder. I remember reading the details of his death and having a visceral reaction. For days and weeks, I was in a state of numb disbelief. Of course I know people do unspeakable things. I didn’t grow up sheltered nor exempt from horrible experiences. And still no matter how often it happens - there is nothing about me that will ever get used to someone going out of their way to harm another human being, intentionally and calculated. Why would I not find that horrific every single time? How can one not feel anything? How can one not ask the question again. Ask it always.
How.
How can people see their own humanity and not someone else’s?
I am truly asking.
How.
That morning I wrote these words and I keep coming back to them now:
Have you ever known joy so big it squeezes its way out of the corners of your eyes?
Have you ever felt at home in the arms of someone you love?
Have you known loss and it took the breath from your lungs?
Have you felt love so deeply that it changed your beliefs?
How can you love and lose and feel
and not see the thread that connects us?
How can you kiss your child
and hold your mother
how can you look at your brother
and at yourself in the mirror
and see me differently?
As if we are not woven from the same fabric
grown from the same soil
as if it isn't the same sun that touches our skin
and the same salt we taste in our tears.
If we laugh the same
fear the same
and cry the same
and if we kiss our loved ones the same
and if our hearts break the same
Why can you not see my humanity?
Of course I know how.
I know about the cycle of pain.
I know that hurt people hurt people.
I know about dehumanising someone in order to be able to harm them.
I know there is an explanation.
But an explanation is not an excuse.
HOW.
There is a social media war on right now, alongside the one happening in Gaza.
People divide themselves into pro and anti, even when they don’t know the stranger on the internet; even when it’s a beloved lifelong friend; even when it’s family members.
Once again, people are forgetting each others humanity.
We want to promote compassion but you can’t have compassion for the ‘wrong’ side. People forget exactly this: That everything you feel and experience, everyone else does too.
That the person you hate is as human as you. Complex with a set of intricate experience, nuanced feelings and realities.
That we can become exactly like the people we are trying to fight against: we forget their humanity just as we feel they have forgotten ours. We forget that we are not actually fighting people - that is the problem. We confuse the cause and the person.
We forget to hold multitudes. We forget that more than one thing can be true at the same time. We forget that people on all sides are suffering and it’s always always always the innocent ones that die.
We forget that the people are not the problem - governments led by traumatised, broken men are. The problem is the hunger for power, validation. And the desire to be right so bad, in the end, can make you wrong.
When I feel hate, when I feel resistance in my heart. When I feel despise - I keep coming back to this:
You are as human as I am. On the other side there is a human just as scared, broken, just as desperate, just as capable of both good and bad as me. Just a human.
If you are an artist, thank you for giving your gift to the world, especially now. It isn’t trivial, it’s vital.
Conosci De Andrè? “La Guerra di Piero” era il 1966…
I am a reflection of you… Beautiful. Thank you, for sharing your gift. 🥹🖤✨