In many of my columns I have alluded to a common theme, though I have used that theme as an underlying lesson rather than attacking it head on.
I have talked about it in regards to politics, race relations, public perception, religion — you name it, I’ve touched on it briefly.
To put a nice big bow on all of those columns, this is the last time I’m going to write about this topic in this space, but this time I’m going to hit it on right on the head.
Our society — as a species, not just as a country — is broken. No matter how you slice it, human beings like to put many things, including themselves, into categories — Republican or Democrat, black or white, haves or have nots — all of which creates division.
The big problem with this is that no two people are alike. We are all unique, and we all have different circumstances. But when we group ourselves into these particular categories, we are stereotyping ourselves and removing our sense of self.
And it really feels like we’re regressing as a society in this regard. That may just be the national media spending more time on the negative rather than the positive, but there definitely is no shortage of negative stories.
As a Dallas Cowboys fan born in the early 1990s, I don’t remember the team’s glory days firsthand of winning three Super Bowls in four years. I was still in the womb for the first, an infant for the second and a toddler for the third. But I have watched them all countless times. One in particular, Super Bowl XXVII on Jan. 31, 1993, in which the Cowboys beat the Buffalo Bills 52-17, I have probably watched about 20 times. My parents recorded it on VHS, and I used to watch it all the time as a kid.
The game itself isn’t important to this topic, but the halftime show is. In what was, in my opinion, the greatest Super Bowl halftime show performance ever, Michael Jackson was absolutely incredible. It wasn’t his singing or dance moves, it was his message. After he performed “Black or White,” which if you don’t know the words to the song I implore you to look up the lyrics — they are as relevant today as they were then — he stopped the performance and spoke directly to the masses watching the game:
“Today, we stand together all around the world joined in a common purpose to remake the planet into a haven of joy. In understanding in goodness, no one should have to suffer, especially our children. This time, we must succeed.”
Did that generation succeed in making the world a better place for its children? In some ways one could argue yes, but in the most important ways no. We are as divided as ever.
So how do we, as a society, fix this issue?
Well, for starters, we need to stop trying to make every last thing fit into black and white categories. In everything, there are shades of gray. There isn’t necessarily good or bad people — “good people” do bad things and “bad people” do good things. It’s all about context, and a lot of times it’s the circumstances surrounding us that determine what we do in certain situations.
If we do that, and we stop stereotyping others and ourselves it would be a big step in the right direction. By pigeonholing our identities into all these categories, it automatically creates perceptions.
Just because someone identifies as a Republican doesn’t mean they agree with every right-wing policy and vice versa. Just because someone has the same skin color as the person next to them doesn’t make them the same type of person. It’s all relative.
If, as human beings, we put an end to fitting ourselves into all these different categories and embraced our diversity with each belief, principle and circumstance that makes us unique, then we could finally begin taking steps in the right direction because our world isn’t black and white — it’s full of different colors. n
Joshua Campbell is sports editor of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him at joshuacampbell@columbianprogress.com.
