The Healing Hope We Can Give

The white woman kept shouting at us all as we walked by. I heard her before I saw her, although it seemed like most people in the local Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march ignored her. We were there with our family -- me, my wife and our two girls. We'd taken our family to local peaceful marches like this before, wanting our girls to become good global citizens and activists of inclusion, fairness and critical thinking.

Last year's march for us evoked hope and embodied peace and love for all peoples and races, not anger and hate, and it denounced bullying, harassment and assault wherever and however it appears. But this year's march felt different, much more somber than previous ones. There were pockets of celebratory joy and healing hope, but overall it was much more subdued, awkward even. And the white woman kept shouting at us all as walked by.

"This march isn't for you! You are not black! You have no idea what they've gone through! This isn't for you! Stop pretending it's for you!"

Again, most people ignored her as we walked past. We finished the march and I just wanted to get out of there, further triggered by my involvement last year in taking on workplace bullying in local politics. But she was right about one thing -- even those most enlightened, empathic and privileged of us don't know what brown and black people have gone through in our country, never experiencing institutionalized discrimination like they have for hundreds of years. Yes, it was an awkward march for me, made more so by the fact that my family was on the front page of our newspaper.

Less than three months later, our world has been swallowed up by a pandemic (COVID-19) and the combined levels of human loss and economic loss are beyond overwhelming. Government assistance has failed many small businesses and the self-employed. Add in the loss of personal freedoms and liberties due to distancing and shelter-in-place orders and it's no wonder that anger, frustration even depression are on the rise. Domestic and sexual violence are are the rise too, a dangerous byproduct of the lockdown, where people in violent home situations have no where to go.

Combine the macro with the micro and everyday decisions we used to make become mind-bending existential threats -- We have to go to the grocery store, so when do we go? Will the shelves be stocked with what we need? And if they have what we need, we'll still have to wear a mask inside, and when we get home wipe and/or wash down everything we bought, and then even change our clothes if we carried things against our bodies.

Repeat that process with every essential errand that needs to be ran. I wasn't sure what to call it until I read that we're all suffering from moral fatigue, where the everyday things we did in the old days are now daunting and emotionally and physically depleting.

In our latest weekly family meeting, which are more important now than ever, we always share what we've noticed about each other, how appreciate each other and what we're grateful for. Our youngest Bryce said, "I'm so grateful we're wealthy." Both her mother and I looked at each other, and then responded, "No, we're not really."

"Well, I'm grateful we can go to the store and get food," she added.

Both our girls have an understanding of what's happening in the world, and the fact that Bryce equated our ability to go to the store when we need to with being wealthy really wasn't a surprise. The fact is while our financial runway may be longer than some, it still ends on the edge of a cliff like most folks. We've all already lost so many other things. Which is why we recommended donating date nights to help feed hungry families.

Coronavirus hasn't discriminated over who gets sick and dies, and how quickly it can spread, but it certainly has exposed all our glaring socioeconomic and cultural differences and inequalities. The anger and frustration has led to protests that are understandable; it's an existential conundrum over whether we continue to destroy our very fragile economic livelihoods, or not, because of this deadly virus. A deadly virus that we have no idea how many are infected until testing improves, and will spike again until a vaccine is developed that still could be 12-18 months away.

But this moral fatigue and viral frustration has also exposed irrational thinking and unlocked a growing backlash of comparative personal suffering. The latest protests claiming government overreach with shelter-in-place has had their plight equated to that of African Americans and the civil rights movement. I get the existential conundrum, but I don't get the comparison.

I urge us all to be careful of comparing incomparable historical suffering to current personal suffering. Fact is, we're all suffering today; we've never had to experience so much disruptive change so fast in the modern day. We should be empathic to each other and help each other as much as we can. And at the very least, if this means sacrificing some of our personal freedoms for the health and safety of others -- our friends and families and communities -- then this is the healing hope we can give to everyone, regardless of race, and because of it.