How We are Divided and Nature's Part in the Healing

There’s always more to it.

There’s more to that long ago incident, more to that one person you really just don’t like. Things you will never know about or realize were ever going down. 

There’s so much more than any one person can know or understand. Not just in the facts, but also in the interpretations and the guesses, the misunderstandings and the assumptions, and all the other feelings involved, beyond the shrouded surface of the story.

But in all the mess of the things you do and don’t know, I think there are some things that must be a part of the things you are aware of. 

Assumptions assume. They don’t validate or prove anything. They happen spontaneously with little to no actual thought put into them, according to educational justice leader for students of color Brianne Dotson from Gladstone Institutes. Using our previous knowledge, our brains classify those similar to us as in the same group and apply the things we know to people we may not even know yet. Repeated, these become stereotypes and can come to influence the way we interact with others. A lot of the time they can lead to the wrong conclusions. The wrong conclusions can lead to discrimination, hate. Hate which can be infective, infectious, and effective immediately. 

You’ve seen these on the news: the hate crimes, the school shootings, and, even, the most recent, government shutdown that has been going on for 4 weeks without an approaching compromise. We part the sides into victim and assailant, allies and enemies, but we never seem to see them as a whole, humans, like ourselves. One side sees the other side as entirely inflexible, ignorant, uncomprehending, and incapable of changing. 

The US is divided, polarized even. Divided on many things, which is normal and should be acceptable, except today we don’t seem to agree to disagree. Many people in America disagree with each other and in turn come to hate, to where compromise doesn’t seem to be an option.  They’ll hate the opposing side. They’ll hate how much they earn, what they do, where they live, what they like, what they believe in, who people are, aka their identity. And it doesn’t and won’t stop there at just an expression of disgust and contempt or maybe a glare up and down - sometimes when the scorn is deeper the actions go further, towards more to verbal abuse, physical harm, violence, something that spills and pollutes for everyone to see…only until others intervene. 

When each side is stubbornly unwilling to see through to each other, things can plainly not get done. Sides don’t even trust each other, or even try to understand, especially when it comes to making decisions on things that will affect everybody, just because they are being opposed. This is ‘affective polarization’, hating more because they’re ‘them’ and not ‘us’. And since we can’t seem to figure out a truce for the betterment, progress, and innovation for our own future; maybe we can look at nature for a light out. 

In nature, differences in an ecosystem are good. Thousands of species having different strengths and weaknesses, and so their own roles to play that the rest of the system depends on. This is biodiversity, the strength a community has from having different abilities that when hit hardest are able to work together to get back up. This biodiversity is what we need in society because when we start valuing each other’s different strengths and views, and stories, and each other, we can be able to come through and solve our biggest problems.

Now, these big problems aren’t approachable or solvable with just one person, at least, not them by themselves. Movements work with many people backing up a cause. You may not think that there’s much you can do to help with curing hate which may seem so remote or helping biodiversity grow but you can. 

That’s why I want everybody to stand up, literally, physically, right now; stand up, like I am; if you’re still listening because as you do, gradually, others will follow too. Now, as you stand, I want you to look at everybody, everyone in the classroom. And start seeing them as who they are, without any bias, from anybody else; as human. And reflect to know that there’s always more to it.

- Anonymous, 11th Grade