Dear Fellow Americans, We Need to Remember to Humanize Each Other.
My name is Brian. I am not a professional writer, nor a public speaker of any sort. I am a thinker, a believer of unity, and an optimist.
Writing this in July 2022, the country is unarguably divided. After decades of following individualistic values, we have come to a state in the country where we are in a standoff, and nobody with their political ideas and accustomed lifestyles are willing to budge.
And that’s completely normal and expected. Every community and person has optimized their lifestyle for convenience and comfort to themselves; in fact, they are encouraged to. Individualism and capitalism rewards us to come up with our innovations, regardless of what others do or think. That promotes freedom and independence, and that’s why we all love being in this country.
We have finally reached a threshold though, a threshold that needs to be addressed. We’ve come to the point where we openly hate, harm, and kill each other because of differences in the color of skin, differences in beliefs, and differences in ideas.
Granted, this is not new. Ideas of discrimination and racism have existed long before the US was established. However, with systemic discrimination slowly withering away, we have taken it upon ourselves to maintain the discrimination to our comfort. That is not right.
Although, the argument is not one-sided. As much as it is morally unjust to discriminate against others for skin color, beliefs, or ideas, it is just as unjust to discriminate against others for discriminating. We are in fact doing the same thing for the same reason: discriminating on misalignment.
We hate on each other because we have different color skin. We hate on each other because we don’t believe in the same Gods. We hate on each other because we have different opinions on gun control, and abortion. The truth of the matter is we are all human, and we are all American. It feels like we forget that when we antagonize each other on these misalignments.
Our minds also make it easy to associate mishaps with race or ethnicity; that’s what our brain is biologically trained to do. However, that creates stereotypes; it creates fear; it creates judgment; it creates hate. That is something we have to work to be aware of to not let overtake our day-to-day decisions. And because of our individualistic culture, we have to figure it out for ourselves.
Here in the US, we have a challenge different than most other developed countries: we lack homogeneity. We are different races; we have different upbringings; we have different cultural values; we eat different food, and even speak different languages. For instance, compared to China, the different dialects are grouped under “Chinese”, and you have an idea of what Chinese food is. The lack of homogeneity creates more friction for us to break through in order to unify under a portrayal of “American”.
With all that said, it seems doubtful that Americans will unify under any idea or belief.
However, I have a vision, a vision where we Americans see each other as equal human beings, regardless of our skin, regardless of our beliefs. We each have our comfort lifestyle, and respect each other’s lifestyles, and can even bring new learnings to incorporate into our own lives and make them even better.
Let’s not forget about all the benefits of living in such a diverse community. Can you imagine having the option of eating Mexican food in Japan? Or Ethiopian food in the middle of China? Or how about Japanese food in the middle of Argentina? We have the luxury of learning and experiencing so many different cultures inside our own country!
So, we want to humanize each other to unify and improve the country’s current circumstances, but how do we even start a “humanizing” movement? Well, it starts with ourselves, and looking inward at our habits, personalities, and way of thinking. We have to realize that the things we see on TV, internet, social media, are all controlled and painting a specific narrative. Millions of different stories, with happy, tragic, fearful, or exciting endings, happen every single day, and yet we only have time to consume the handful that are given to us on a silver platter. As mentioned before, it is easy for our brains to see a reporting of a crime on the news and quickly associate the person to a specific race. However, it’s important to realize that on top of that, in every single country, there are the same cohorts of people that we have in our country: hard workers, philanthropists, volunteer workers, community leaders, caring parents, and with those, thieves, scammers, abusers. America functions just like any other society, with the opportunity to be even better given our cultural diversity. However, because of our individualistic lifestyles, it is ultimately up to each of us individually to unify together, make our living circumstances, environment, and lifestyles better for each other, and the future Americans to come.
If you support this idea, please take it with you and foster it in your mind. Bring it to your home, share it with your friends, family, even your workplace. Impact your community, and make tomorrow’s America better than today’s.
