We often have internal dialogues with ourselves, I know I certainly do. As I was driving out of my driveway last week going to an appointment with a client, I saw a little boy crying. I was curious to make sure he was ok and was comforted to see his parents were not too far away from him on their driveway. Then, I started thinking about the concept of crying; about how when children are hurt physically they cry and conversely when adults feel emotional or psychological pain is when they begin to cry. It occurred to me that our tears are actually our most innocent and raw feeling that is attached to our earliest way in coping with pain. As infants, it is an inherited trait to display our discomfort to our loved ones and in turn ask for attention and care. Then, I thought maybe that’s why as adults we only cry when we are hurt psychologically, because that is the truest form of pain we most certainly feel and we tend to regress to our primal and basic display of discomfort that we learned at our early stage of life. Therefore, crying actually displays our most basic human discomfort that we resort to.
Few days had passed when I heard another tragic news of a gentleman murdered in the streets by a group of cops in broad daylight. Curiosity and stupidity got the best of me to watch this incident live on the internet video channels. When the video clip ended, I went through the denial phase where I thought is this for real? How can a human being take another person’s life in a matter of few minutes with many watching? Then thoughts of how precious life is and what his family will have to go through as they see their loved one’s life taken away from him at the hands of another human being. I was overwhelmed with emotions and yes Tears. I was full out crying. As I began to think, this is all happening during the most trying time for the entire human race as we are all fighting against a mutual global enemy, a virus.
Generally, when a group of individuals go through an obstacle together their bond becomes stronger. It begs the question why did this happen then? How can we be turning on each other? Unfortunately the underlying answer to this is far too familiar: discrimination. Discriminating against an individual or group based on many different, human defined categories in an effort to simplify. As a person with multicultural background I have experienced first-hand how it feels to be discriminated against by different groups only because you look different. My earliest memory was as early as being four years old, I cried to my father one evening telling him how I did not want to return to my daycare because the children there made fun of how my eyes looked. I remembered being humiliated and no one wanted to be my friend. I was told by one child to not “copy them” in their pulling on the corners of their eyes with their fingers, as my eyes were already like that. Later-on in primary school I learned very quickly that children were pointing their fingers at me from far away in the play yard and whispering to each other “She’s Japanese!” This actually made me develop moderate lip reading ability, I was able to lip read this comment and immediately confront them by walking towards them stating that my Father was actually from where they are from, I was born in the same country as them and no my mother is not Japanese; rather a Filipina (from the Philippines), who is a practicing Doctor in your country. Few years passed and many other incidents, where my family immigrated to Canada. I felt grateful when I arrived, because finally there was a country where I did not need to necessarily identify with one culture or the other. I could finally just be me. I remember when I found out quite quickly in primary school that it was not the case at all. Actually, I was told by a classmate that while we are all Canadians, we continue to categorize ourselves by our background. So, if your family comes from Italy, for example, you would be describing yourself as Italian Canadian. I then realized that this battle is far from over; as children and later on adults continued to blurt discriminatory comments in many different setting and occasions. I do know how these comments are intended to belittle the person it is targeting. Years have passed and I learned to embrace my multicultural background in spite few people’s lack of better judgement and distasteful behaviours and comments. I was very hopeful that the worst was over, until I witnessed what I did the other night. I witnessed how serious and quickly this hate and discrimination can turn into serious hatred and can cost us a Life if left unaddressed. How can a human take another’s life? This has got to Stop. We are all of one race: the human race. Let us grow to love each other and celebrate our differences and learn from one another.
If we want a true change we must begin with ourselves. Stop categorizing people. We are all ONE. I will leave this with a very famous Iranian Poem from the 13th century:
Human beings are members of a whole,
in creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
the name of human you cannot retain.
- Sa’adi
Thank you for reading. Hoping for better Tomorrows!
All Human Lives Matter!
- Anna
Few days had passed when I heard another tragic news of a gentleman murdered in the streets by a group of cops in broad daylight. Curiosity and stupidity got the best of me to watch this incident live on the internet video channels. When the video clip ended, I went through the denial phase where I thought is this for real? How can a human being take another person’s life in a matter of few minutes with many watching? Then thoughts of how precious life is and what his family will have to go through as they see their loved one’s life taken away from him at the hands of another human being. I was overwhelmed with emotions and yes Tears. I was full out crying. As I began to think, this is all happening during the most trying time for the entire human race as we are all fighting against a mutual global enemy, a virus.
Generally, when a group of individuals go through an obstacle together their bond becomes stronger. It begs the question why did this happen then? How can we be turning on each other? Unfortunately the underlying answer to this is far too familiar: discrimination. Discriminating against an individual or group based on many different, human defined categories in an effort to simplify. As a person with multicultural background I have experienced first-hand how it feels to be discriminated against by different groups only because you look different. My earliest memory was as early as being four years old, I cried to my father one evening telling him how I did not want to return to my daycare because the children there made fun of how my eyes looked. I remembered being humiliated and no one wanted to be my friend. I was told by one child to not “copy them” in their pulling on the corners of their eyes with their fingers, as my eyes were already like that. Later-on in primary school I learned very quickly that children were pointing their fingers at me from far away in the play yard and whispering to each other “She’s Japanese!” This actually made me develop moderate lip reading ability, I was able to lip read this comment and immediately confront them by walking towards them stating that my Father was actually from where they are from, I was born in the same country as them and no my mother is not Japanese; rather a Filipina (from the Philippines), who is a practicing Doctor in your country. Few years passed and many other incidents, where my family immigrated to Canada. I felt grateful when I arrived, because finally there was a country where I did not need to necessarily identify with one culture or the other. I could finally just be me. I remember when I found out quite quickly in primary school that it was not the case at all. Actually, I was told by a classmate that while we are all Canadians, we continue to categorize ourselves by our background. So, if your family comes from Italy, for example, you would be describing yourself as Italian Canadian. I then realized that this battle is far from over; as children and later on adults continued to blurt discriminatory comments in many different setting and occasions. I do know how these comments are intended to belittle the person it is targeting. Years have passed and I learned to embrace my multicultural background in spite few people’s lack of better judgement and distasteful behaviours and comments. I was very hopeful that the worst was over, until I witnessed what I did the other night. I witnessed how serious and quickly this hate and discrimination can turn into serious hatred and can cost us a Life if left unaddressed. How can a human take another’s life? This has got to Stop. We are all of one race: the human race. Let us grow to love each other and celebrate our differences and learn from one another.
If we want a true change we must begin with ourselves. Stop categorizing people. We are all ONE. I will leave this with a very famous Iranian Poem from the 13th century:
Human beings are members of a whole,
in creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
the name of human you cannot retain.
- Sa’adi
Thank you for reading. Hoping for better Tomorrows!
All Human Lives Matter!
- Anna
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