This past week has been raw and emotional. Many of you might be feeling fatigued from all the social justice posts and wondering when your feeds will go back to normal.
But what is normal?
Image from Wentzville United Methodist Unity Walk June 6, 2020
Normal is a lot like “living in the fine”. Living in the fine is a term I use to describe the apathetic numbness of just moving through day-to-day life without really living, without really seeing.
Yes, your social feeds will soon go back to funny animal memes, cute photos of your friends’ kids, and everything else we think of as normal and fine. As this happens, I encourage you to find ways to stop living in the fine. What this last week has taught me, is that we’re not fine. We have to do better for each other.
This last week, I have spent a lot of time examining my behavior as an adult. What have I done that’s not okay?
I have made comments such as “I don’t see color,” which I thought was a wise and progressive statement. Now, I see it for what it is. It’s a statement that doesn’t fully let me see others or gives no credence to their human experiences . Recently, I challenged a fellow author, a brilliant African American author and speaker, when she told me that she wasn’t sure she wanted her face on the cover of her book because books with brown faces on their covers don’t sell as well. I remember sitting across from her thinking that’s not true. How can that be true? And, I didn’t just think it, I said it out loud. I had the nerve to challenge her experience as a black woman. That, my friends, is the behavior we have to change. Just because it’s not something I’ve experienced doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
I am happy and grateful to have this platform as a way to connect with you through writing, reading, and purposeful storytelling. Will my feed go back to promoting my books and products? Yes, it will, but how can I call myself a human-interest novelist if I shy away from making statements about social inequality?
Thank you for letting me share this message with you today, and to paraphrase the outstanding poet and novelist Maya Angelou, let’s do our best until we know better, and then let’s do better!
