Unity Through Diversity

Because the opening ceremonies are still pretty hot on my YouTube feed, I'm still thinking about it.

I was talking with my sister and we came up with a phrase: You do you and I'll do me. Leave it alone and let it be.

When there's conflict and tension, we can choose to ignore it or we can choose to engage with it. As I think about it, two pictures come to mind. The first is a container of water with dirt in it and the second is a snow globe.

With the dirty water, the more you move it around and agitate it, the more it stays dirty. Only by leaving it alone will the sediment fall to the bottom, leaving clear water. If we see conflict as a bad thing, it's best to leave it alone to get back to clear.

The snow globe, on the other hand, is meant to be shaken. The globe becomes more interesting and beautiful to look at when its shaken. With this analog, conflict creates opportunity for learning and understanding, which can bring out the best in humanity.

So, what's the appropriate thing to do? If given the choice, at this moment, I would like to see a snow globe. The emotions are pretty raw and I want to see if we can learn something and grow as a species.

Let's think about this empathically. The group feeling hurt are the Christians. They feel attacked for their beliefs. Something they hold sacred is being mocked and they don't like it. The response I've seen from the more liberally-minded crowd is one of dismissal. The most common response is that the scene in question is not portraying a Christian image, but a Greek one. In saying this, they are essentially saying the Christians feelings are unjustified and wrong.

I take a yearly ethics training at work. Part of it includes diversity training. They state that even if the intent isn't there, we cannot do things that make another person feel violated. In other words, it's the impact that's important, not the intent. No one likes to feel dismissed.

On the conservative side, I hear a lot of dismissal when it comes to systemic racism. They say the people complaining have never been under the yoke of antebellum slavery, so they have no right to keep bringing it up. Is that true? On the surface, it is. The Emancipation Proclaimation occurred in 1863, so technically that generation of people are no longer here. The current generation of people exist post-proclaimation and civil war, so yes, they haven't experienced slavery personally. But that doesn't mean the impact isn't felt in the black community today. Is the feeling of oppression justified? It doesn't matter. It's felt by people, regardless if someone else thinks they shouldn't feel this way.

If we want to be consistent, it seems we should pay the same courtesy to the Christians. Rather than dismiss their feelings as invalid, we can express empathy. We can get curious. We can ask them what The Last Supper painting means to them and what they felt by seeing that image violated. When one of us hurt, we all hurt. This can be a beautiful opportunity to come together as a global community and learn more about each other. At the end of the day, that's what the intent of the ceremony was. Unity through diversity.