“We are humans, not politics,” stated my friend Jorge. He’s a nurse that immigrated from Mexico when he was a child. “I’m glad I came over when I did.”
While temporary relief of the separation of children from their parents is the word of the day (http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-immigration-20180620-story.html), let’s grab the opportunity to take a look behind the scenes of the scandalous practice and work towards making temporary relief a more permanent and far reaching concept.
As stated in the Facebook Live interview of Roshi Joan by Waylon Lewis (https://www.facebook.com/elephantjournal/videos/10156319678694223/UzpfSTE1NDYyMDMyNzIzMDAwNzg6MjEyMTAwODkyMTQ4NjE3NA/?multi_permalinks=2121091514811248¬if_id=1529605277968072¬if_t=group_activity), dehumanization is not a new practice. Roshi Joan provides examples of families being broken up in multiple different periods in the history of the United States, including during World War II with Japanese internment camps and in the late 1800s with the disbanding of many Native American tribes. Other countries besides the United States are quite guilty as well, notoriously those involved in the Holocaust and the multitude of other humanitarian tragedies and crises throughout the world.
Unfortunately, the act of pulling families apart is not the only way we dehumanize each other. The simple act of disrespecting another person because of their religious or political beliefs, color of their skin, type of clothes on their back or the way they speak is a form of dehumanization.
Any time we fail to give each other the love and respect we all deserve, we practice the act of dehumanizing.
How do we change this? In the article “A Call For Humanity To Meet Fire With Fire “https://www.elephantjournal.com/2017/11/a-call-for-humanity-to-meet-fire-with-fire/
author Brianna Perkins says “We must meet destruction with the power of unconditional love and service. Now is the time for unwavering faith and swift action. We hold within ourselves a divinity more powerful than fear.
It is time to consciously create a shift on the planet while blazing the world in love.”
Now is the time to make ourselves and the world a better place. We can all do our part to practice love and respect to each other from here on out, in every interaction in which we partake.
Let’s set the world on fire.
~Erin Glassman
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