🪷People Beyond Your Group
reflections following an encounter with extreme prejudice
It hurts when I hear someone
call a group of people "trash"
(especially when it's about
skin color or some such).
What stones are thrown
from base and baseless hate,
primitive tribalism,
and crude indoctrination!
When your mind is free,
it costs nothing to see
people beyond your group
as people.
In the notebook
This one is more soapbox-y than my usual; and as you can see, there were a lot more thoughts and feelings I had than I ended up including in the final (for now) version. Maybe I’ll incorporate some of those other pieces into future efforts. I’m guessing the main work ahead of me on this track will be about further exploring and/or expressing my feelings of anger about this stuff.
I don't think this is overly soap-boxy. In fact, I think it's a good reminder. We live in a society where shaming and dehumanizing others is so commonplace, like we grew up with that language and it's so easy to do without even thinking about it. Not just based on race/religion/gender/etc identities, but even stuff like "the people in that neighborhood" or "anyone who likes that movie." We might not feel the hate in our heart when we say those things but it's still there, insidious because it keeps us using that kind of language. So I think it's great to put a poem like this out there, because we all slip up and it's an important thing to remember! ❤️