WordSisters

Category: Change

  • A Change Is Gonna Come

    In 1967, when there were race riots in Detroit and Toledo, my hometown, I was 12. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated in 1968. Chicago policemen clubbed protesters who chanted, “The whole world is watching” at the Democratic National convention in 1968.

    civil rights protest

    In 1970, when Ohio National Guardsmen killed four students and injured nine others on the Kent State University campus, I was 15. Vietnam War protests took place across the country. Students took over college campus buildings. Protesters stormed government buildings. Thousands marched in the streets.

    Kent & Jackson State

    The civil rights movement and war protests shook our country. The old ways—from entrenched institutions like segregation to how political parties worked, and what we wanted from authorities like police—were under siege and crumbling. As a teenager, I felt the turbulence. Anything could happen. Was happening. Although I was against segregation and the Vietnam War, the violence associated with ending those ills scared me.

    However, I sensed the dawning of a new era and was hopeful that real change, as well as peace and justice, were possible.

    Black protests

    Today, I have the same sense. Once again our country, and indeed, the Western world (Great Britain’s Brexit and the European union’s struggles with immigration and identity) is at a crossroads.

    refugees

    No matter what, change is gonna come. 10 years from now, our country is going to be different.

    Decades have passed since I was a teenager who was bewildered by events and worried about our future. Today, I still worry about where our country is headed, and I don’t know what the coming changes will look like, but I’m hopeful.

    I believe that people of good faith will work to end systemic racism.

    I believe Americans will return to our core values: we’re a nation of immigrants who are committed to religious freedom.

    I’m hopeful that despite our differences, we can redirect our political leaders so they once again work for all of us.

    If you feel discouraged and hopeless about the possibility of change, click to this video set to Sam Cooke’s civil rights anthem “A Change Is Gonna Come” to be reminded of how many unbelievably hard changes have taken place since the late 1960’s.

    None of the coming changes will be easy and they will certainly be imperfect. Nonetheless, I believe that Americans’ good sense and love of justice will prevail.

    “I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.”

  • Change Won’t Happen Unless We Demand It

    Today I am in despair, afraid that Americans don’t have the courage and persistence to address gun violence. We feel horrible when another massacre happens like the one in Orlando. We deplore the murder rates and stray bullets flying around in the Twin Cities, Chicago, and other cities. Sometimes we react by going numb. Often we are cynical. Regularly we tune out the nonstop news of a massacre, because we can’t bear to listen and we feel powerless to change the situation.

    Screen Shot 2016-06-13 at 12.05.43 PM

    Without intending to be, we are complicit. Essentially, when ordinary Americans don’t demand change, we become accomplices to the mass murderers. We’ve provided the setting in which acts of mass murder are easy to commit. We’ve accepted that guns and violence are part of American life. We’ve allowed gunmen to kill in schools and on college campuses, in churches, movie theaters, military bases, neighborhoods, and nightclubs. No place is sacred. No one is completely safe.

    I don’t know how to fix the problem of gun violence, but we have to try. Feeling bad isn’t enough.

    The solutions will have to be multifaceted, because the problem is complex. Our attitudes and American culture, as well as laws, regulations, and more have to change. Common sense gun control and better support for mental illness treatment are good places to start, but the solutions need to go deeper. We need cultural change. As Americans, we need to re-examine how we think about our rights to have guns, protect ourselves, and exercise our freedoms.

    I know this won’t be easy and it will take time. But we have to try.

    As Americans, we have changed how we think about alcoholism and drunk driving. We look at both issues differently than we did 40 years ago. We’ve made some progress. Not enough, but some.

    We’ve raised awareness and begun to change how we view child abuse, domestic violence, and rape. Obviously, we have a long way to go, but 50 years ago we were in the dark ages on these issues. In those days, many people thought that parents could discipline children as they saw fit, that a husband beating his wife was a private matter, and that women who were raped did something to cause it. Too many people still hold those views, but our culture has begun to change.

    As with those social issues, gun violence will begin to change when ordinary people start having the conversations that challenge cultural assumptions and attitudes. Change will happen when our state and federal legislators hear from us and understand that we’ve had enough.

    Change is possible, but we have to insist on it.