Some things I just tune out

National Blog Posting Month – September 2014 – Healing

Prompt – What is the most helpful post (or Twitter hashtag) you read in all the coverage on Ferguson?

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This prompt bugs me.

I mean, I get that what happened in Ferguson is a big deal. And I get that there’s a big problem here with guns and shootings and race and police and military weapons.

It’s bad.

I get it.

But I’ve chosen to only read one or two news stories about this. In part because I know that every news story is colored by horrible biases on the part of the authors – even mainstream media. It’s impossible for me to know the truth based on anything that’s out there. It merely serves as a sickening reminder that there are problems out there. Some problems that I feel powerless to do anything about.

The best thing I can do is just be a part (a small part) of the solution. I teach my child to not judge a person by race, but by who that person is. My boy is good at this, and is only now, at the ripe old age of 10, starting to notice that some people look different than others, that there are different races.

The other thing I do is fight against all my deeply held prejudices. We have them, we all do. The challenge is to recognize them and know them for what they really are. And then move beyond them. It’s not easy. But it’s all I can do.