We’ve become a nation of hypocrites.
Adults decry bullying, demanding schools “do something”, while at the same time engaging in bullying on social media and among their peers.
We complain about the proliferation of fake news yet share without fact-checking articles on social media.
Racist language is met with outrage. Sometimes. The same people who are outraged often use it themselves and pay to see movies with it, laugh at stand-up comics whose routines are filled with it, and spend millions of dollars each year on music in which it is rampant.
The appropriation of cultural clothing/jewelry, even by those who were unaware of the object’s significance, is vilified. A group of white politicians wearing kente stoles and kneeling in a carefully-orchestrated arrangement is applauded.
We expect our children to obey our rules but are angry at the teacher who catches them breaking school rules and at the police officer who catches them breaking the law. And, of course, we deliberately break the laws we don’t agree with.
A Christian man holding a Bible at a burned church is labeled a “photo op”, but that same group of politicians kneeling while wearing, for presumably the first time in their lives, a kente stole, is not; in fact, it is applauded by many.
At least 65 % of Americans claim to be Christian, yet politicians who vow to vote for or even have a track record of voting for practices that are blatantly anti-Christian are elected by wide margins.We demand tolerance yet do not extend it to others.
The Hollywood elite and and many wealthy individuals denounce a wall protecting our citizenry from those who willingly break our laws to enter this country. Those same people live in homes surrounded by a wall or inside gated communities patrolled by high-priced security teams.
It’s far past time for people to stop pointing the finger at the actions of others and focus on our own.
It’s far past time for all of us to truly practice — day in, day out — the beliefs and values we claim to hold, to uphold the same standards that we expect others to live by.
It’s time to live authentically.
It’s time to live authentically.