A personal perspective feels too small, but a global perspective is beyond my grasp. I want to tell you that for the first time in my life, I'm not sleeping. I stare out the window and wish for sleep until I give in to continued awakeness. I want to tell you that I am obsessively exercising. I keep thinking, "I have to be well for my kids. I might be their only parent soon." I want to tell you that I hate to leave the house. I used to be a person who complimented strangers. Now I am avoiding eye-contact and silently seething about strangers getting too close to me.
But all of that is meaningless in context. Who cares about my sleep hygiene when the working poor are being exploited? There are refugees in crowded camps with no protection. There are children, right here in my own city, locked up together and getting sick. There are migrants here in my state, in the town where I got married, locked up together, at greater risk of infection, not for any violent crimes or flight risks, just as a deterrent to others who might try to come to this country.
I hate the way that history is taught as a series of wrongs that have already been righted. Yes, we rounded up American citizens of Japanese descent and imprisoned them, but then we freed them again! Huzzah! Yes, we treated black people badly for generations, but then Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made a beautiful speech and the Civil Rights Movement happened, and now we're all treated equally! Huzzah! Yes, workers faced harsh conditions, but then we had the labor movement, so now we don't even need unions anymore! Huzzah!
No. It's not like that at all.
History is a mirror. Who are human beings? Ah yes. We are the ones who commit these atrocities. We are the ones who destroy each other and desecrate our planet. All of the wrongs we have read about in history are ongoing. All of them.
I will not wish death on the protestors who want their states to reopen. I will not laugh when they get sick. I will not stoop that low. I will not let that hate corrupt me. I will cling to compassion. I have to believe that compassion will save us.
For my day job, I go into people's homes and tell them how they can help their children with autism achieve greater independence. Most of the parents I work with are immigrants. Many of the families I work with are poor. Many of the parents I work with are black. I am acutely aware of how they are humbling themselves by allowing a white woman into their home to critique their parenting.
I cannot help these families from a place of judgment. If I simply laid out for them everything that they were doing wrong, they would respond with defensiveness and not allow me to return. I must begin with compassion. I must begin with solidarity. I have to find our common goals and our shared values and then ask them, gently, to try implementing my strategies.
I am always astounded and grateful when these parents hear me, when they respond to my compassion by accepting the challenge of trying to make the changes I suggest. Every moment of success I have achieved with a child has been because the parents and I were on the same team, implementing the same strategies, tackling the problems together.
Listen. Compassion means I have to change, too. I have to meet the parents where they are. I have to adjust my recommendations according to what is feasible for this family. What will they be able to consistently implement? What will they be able to maintain?
Please. Look around at everyone you're seething with rage about. Understand that they each have their small, personal perspectives. They are losing sleep or obsessing about money or drowning in anxiety. Understand that the global perspective is impossible to grasp. The history they've heard might not be the history you've heard. But you won't change their minds about a damn thing if you don't start from a place of compassion.
What can I say? What can I do? What can I write about this crisis? Maybe nothing. Maybe none of my efforts will matter. But maybe someone will hear me and rise to the challenge.
But all of that is meaningless in context. Who cares about my sleep hygiene when the working poor are being exploited? There are refugees in crowded camps with no protection. There are children, right here in my own city, locked up together and getting sick. There are migrants here in my state, in the town where I got married, locked up together, at greater risk of infection, not for any violent crimes or flight risks, just as a deterrent to others who might try to come to this country.
I hate the way that history is taught as a series of wrongs that have already been righted. Yes, we rounded up American citizens of Japanese descent and imprisoned them, but then we freed them again! Huzzah! Yes, we treated black people badly for generations, but then Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made a beautiful speech and the Civil Rights Movement happened, and now we're all treated equally! Huzzah! Yes, workers faced harsh conditions, but then we had the labor movement, so now we don't even need unions anymore! Huzzah!
No. It's not like that at all.
History is a mirror. Who are human beings? Ah yes. We are the ones who commit these atrocities. We are the ones who destroy each other and desecrate our planet. All of the wrongs we have read about in history are ongoing. All of them.
I will not wish death on the protestors who want their states to reopen. I will not laugh when they get sick. I will not stoop that low. I will not let that hate corrupt me. I will cling to compassion. I have to believe that compassion will save us.
For my day job, I go into people's homes and tell them how they can help their children with autism achieve greater independence. Most of the parents I work with are immigrants. Many of the families I work with are poor. Many of the parents I work with are black. I am acutely aware of how they are humbling themselves by allowing a white woman into their home to critique their parenting.
I cannot help these families from a place of judgment. If I simply laid out for them everything that they were doing wrong, they would respond with defensiveness and not allow me to return. I must begin with compassion. I must begin with solidarity. I have to find our common goals and our shared values and then ask them, gently, to try implementing my strategies.
I am always astounded and grateful when these parents hear me, when they respond to my compassion by accepting the challenge of trying to make the changes I suggest. Every moment of success I have achieved with a child has been because the parents and I were on the same team, implementing the same strategies, tackling the problems together.
Listen. Compassion means I have to change, too. I have to meet the parents where they are. I have to adjust my recommendations according to what is feasible for this family. What will they be able to consistently implement? What will they be able to maintain?
Please. Look around at everyone you're seething with rage about. Understand that they each have their small, personal perspectives. They are losing sleep or obsessing about money or drowning in anxiety. Understand that the global perspective is impossible to grasp. The history they've heard might not be the history you've heard. But you won't change their minds about a damn thing if you don't start from a place of compassion.
What can I say? What can I do? What can I write about this crisis? Maybe nothing. Maybe none of my efforts will matter. But maybe someone will hear me and rise to the challenge.
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