Of Rock and Water
Slavery is still legal in America per the 13th amendment. Slavery in America is just one of many ugly facets of Racism, a deeply ingrained concept stretching back over 400 years. In the present day, we here in America have over 25% of the world’s incarcerated, a mostly racist practice, and the divide on longstanding fights such as Racism, social justice, and criminal reform have solidly defined at least one political party. On human scales, 400 years is forever. From our singular perspective, 400 years is multiple generations ago and is mostly incomprehensible outside of vague notions of geography, history, and human nature. There are those, however, who take an idea like Racism and want to make it forever. Some become angry at any attempts at change. They wrap their very identity into an idea and become inseparable from it. They become like a rock.
It is commonly held that ‘rocks are forever.’ We pass by rocks all the time, and we see them as static, unchanging objects that retain their shape and position regardless of the elements. When people become this way, they have made a consequential decision. They have decided to remove themselves from the flow of time and to refuse to allow themselves the ability to be anything else ever again. They are now brittle and solid, unyielding, or so they think.
The world does not exist in a vacuum and is a dynamic place. The state in which the rock wishes to turtle itself ceased to exist precisely when the person made their decision. The ground is always shifting; the wind is still blowing; time is always moving. From a casual observer’s perspective the rock may look unchanged but it is being eroded, little by little. So too do people throughout their life receive challenges and inputs they have to reconcile. While many choose to redouble their efforts on being a rock, it doesn’t address their greatest challenge. A rock’s greatest challenge often isn’t the ground or the wind but water. In this case, water is the rest of us people who haven’t wrapped our identities in something and are trying to stop everything from changing. Water flows, water moves, water changes.
All across this blue Earth, we can see how water eats away at rock, carves and shapes it, carries it elsewhere. Landscapes that aren’t genuinely barren have water. Coastlines have changed shapes, Riverbanks have moved, and the seasons bring rains all across the world. Four hundred years of fluidity and life that helps govern how history happened. Water does not carve rock quickly. It is a continuous process over time, much like how friends and family can help someone see the error of their ways.
Age, ‘tradition’ does not inherently make something correct. Justice Samuel Alito, speaking to the Federalist Society, said, “Until very recently, that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now it’s considered bigotry.” He was voicing frustrations, but given his position and content, it is alarming. It has always been bigotry, just as the Earth always revolved around the sun. Just because for the vast majority of human history, people didn’t have conclusive proof of the heliocentric model didn’t make it less correct. People were incorrect and then learned better, just people continuously have done for millennia. Water picks up nutrients and deposits it elsewhere to be used by some other part of nature. When everything is in harmony, it will work itself out in the end.
Are there going to be rocks? Yes, we are imperfect creatures. What is troubling is how people look at a desert and think, “I want to be a part of that.” People look at a hostile, inhospitable, low diversity, barren landscape of survival of the fittest and think, “that’s for me.” Meanwhile, the oceans, lakes, rivers, etc., still want to thrive all the same. We still need the myriad of people and ideas that make life work. Being water, being a rational person, isn’t following one set code or path. Instead, it’s being open to life in all its possibilities and not deciding to become inflexible. Perhaps, 400 years ago, the color of someone’s skin was enough to scare people who still died much more from cuts, diseases, childbirth, territory wars, and harsh winters. However, generations later, people have to try harder to hate. How many people struggle to admit their faults? How many are getting left behind via capitalism and the globalized world? How many get indoctrinated by their church, family, media outlet, and lack the strength of character to overcome it individually? These people find a scapegoat; they project upon someone that doesn’t look like they do.
The good news is that not all hope is lost. Despite all the bluster from specific legal teams, a large desert of stubborn rocks may be unwilling to budge, but there is enough water to bring some green where it needs to go, places that feel forgotten or abandoned. Many people want to let them be a desert, but that is not a solution. If hate-filled concepts like Racism can remain potent for 400 years, it will not merely vanish by leaving them ignored. A healthy populace doesn’t have to be the most managed ones, just the ones with resources. Humanity didn’t pop up in deserts, it popped up along rivers and oceans, where the resources are.
Carving rock will be a long, tedious process, but we will eventually be flattened by it if it isn’t done. We need to be who we always have been, full of compassion and patience. It isn’t about going after the talking heads on TV but the people struggling around us. There are reasons people become radicalized to the point they choose to try to remove themselves from the world around them and block anyone from getting in. Whatever we can do, individually and collectively, to stop the radicalization, the better. Whether we’re treating people like people to fighting for what’s right from our leaders, we can ensure all the nutrients we’re picking and spreading will be used by the nature of tomorrow.