We Kneel as One

The world would be a much kinder place if we teach ourselves that there is no such thing as race. (File photo: Gayatri Malhotra/Unsplash)

Remember this in life: Everyone we meet in our lives is our mirror. By looking at others as our reflection — this becomes the first step of genuine acceptance of others and the world around us.

The world would be a much kinder place if we teach ourselves that there is no such thing as race. There’s only THE HUMAN RACE. It’s not about being colour blind either. It’s about accepting the fact that in life: human race DO have different coloured skins — black, white, brown, and yellow. It is what it is and there’s nothing wrong with it. That’s how we were born. We must educate ourselves that underneath the different coloured skins we have — we thrive as one. We are all born equals. No colour is more superior than the other. No colour should be more privileged than the other. No colour should be inferior to another.

As one human race, we should not be judged by the colour of our skins. Instead, we should be judged by the quality of our characters. The world will never know the real meaning of peace and freedom if we — humans — do not recognize and accept that we all share the same rights.

Do you know why we should treat each other as equals? Ironically, our blood is one colour: it is red. We all live, and we all die. We all breathe the same air.

As a society, the number one flaw that we all have is this: we are all a judgmental lot. The mere fact that we are all different should make us realize how equal we are to each other. Our differences should not divide us. We should refrain from judging and labeling each other. Instead, we should learn to adapt and partake in our differences and accept each other for what and who we are. When we learn to stop judging others, that’s when we stop the ills of our society: racism, hatred, violence, and inequality.

George Floyd would not have died if a white policeman did not kneel on him for an excruciating 8 minutes and 46 seconds. If Derek Chauvin taught himself that: here, underneath my knee, lay a HUMAN BEING JUST LIKE ME, begging and pleading: “I can’t breathe”, therefore, I must listen to him and not kneel on his neck — then, George Floyd would still be alive. No one deserves to die in the name of a $20 bill counterfeit just because he’s black and stereotyped as a criminal. Sadly, let’s say the real name: RACISM.

As a society, we need to judge less and learn to understand each other more. If we are to judge each other, we should learn to judge through each other’s characters. Why? Simply put: our characters are not determined by race, colour, religion, gender, or social status.

RACISM must be stopped, and it stops with us. It took someone like Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castillo, Tamar Rice and Giovanni Lopez for us to truly realize that racism is embedded in our society’s policies, systems, and practices. It took these lives for us to wake up and realize that RACISM robs our societies of the will to do the RIGHT THING: The HUMANE thing.

We must also be cognizant of racial microaggression. We must be mindful of our common and brief daily environmental communications, both verbal and behavioural, whether unintentional or intentional, that convey deprecatory, negative, or belligerent messages to a targeted individual because they belong to a stigmatized group. These types of communications might appear harmless to observers, but they are considered as everyday discrimination or furtive racism. We must learn to put ourselves in the daily life of a stigmatized individual’s shoes — imagine what it’s like to be in the receiving end of racial microaggression. Imagine the stress and heartaches the stigmatized individuals go through in their everyday lives. No one deserves such pain, persecution, and hatred.

Saying “All lives matter” is a form of racial microaggression. Let this sink in: imagine when your only child died. You gave a heartfelt eulogy describing your child as extraordinarily special. Then, out of the blue, someone grabs the microphone from you and steals the thunder: “Well, all children are extraordinarily special.” Therefore, we don’t say all lives matter.

Black, brown, and yellow lives matter as equally as white lives. Black lives matter because we affirm the lives of black marginalized and undocumented folks, black queers, and the black disabled community. Black lives matter because we are working toward a better and more inclusive world where black lives are no longer systematically targeted for demise.

Black lives matter because we affirm our humanity — our contributions to this society, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.

We could live in a wonderful world if only we choose to. Eleven million (not six million) Jews needn’t have suffered and perished if Holocaust and Nazi persecution didn’t exist. Imagine perishing in gas chambers at the death camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. I couldn’t. I shudder in pain. I’m in a deep, loving and meaningful commitment with a beautiful Jew. I couldn’t imagine hurting him. How could a human being torment, inflict unimaginable pain, punish, and murder another human being because of ethnicity and religion? By 1961, the population of indigenous Americans had declined by 90-95 percent, or by around 130 million people. Native Indians were killed by Europeans through slavery, rape, and war — unnecessarily acts of evil. How many more Indigenous women should go missing and be murdered? Four hundred years of black slavery should never have existed in world history. The word “genocide” should never even exist in the dictionary. Again, we could all live in a wonderful world — if we only choose to. Discrimination, ignorance, and hatred kills.

Before we can teach our children, we must first learn and accept to teach ourselves that there should be no room for hatred and divisiveness. There should only be room for equality, respect, kindness and understanding. We must kneel as one human race. Above all, let us not forget the common thread we all share: BEING HUMAN. How many more unnecessary and violent deaths would it take for us to realize that we are more equal than different? I hope and pray that my words resonate with you.