My friend Amy Flower (what a cool name, right?) wrote this post yesterday. Her post is like many I’ve seen in my feed recently, filled with hurt and even completely valid anger.
Please take a moment to hear Amy out and lean IN to her pain instead of turning away from it. I know it’s sometimes hard to look at someone’s pain. It can be as painful and uncomfortable as looking into the sun, but unlike looking into the sun, when you look away your vision will be clearer. You will see and understand things you didn’t see and understand before, and this is how we cultivate empathy and change the world.
Your silence is deafening. I see your lack of acknowledgment of the Pulse attack in Orlando, but watch your devastation over the toddler and singer from The Voice dying. I agree both are horrible tragedies, one a terrible act of violence. However, how can you completely ignore 50 lives being taken and over 50 more being changed forever? Why are you too busy posting photos of your everyday life or memes as if the world and our country’s history didn’t just change forever? There is so much action to be taken around this tragedy. If there is one thing we can learn from this, it’s that life is short. If you don’t have the dignity to show compassion or respect for the victims, then I don’t want you in my life. This act of hate is more than just another massacre, it’s a magnification of the injustices faced by a whole group of people. I am one of those people. My wife is one of those people. My friends are those people. My co-workers and some of my family members are those people. I see you. I see your apathy and it is absolutely crippling. Sometimes a lack of action and silence is far more hurtful than one could even imagine.