Teaching Tolerance is one of my favorite magazines. Published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the magazine’s mission is to help teachers and schools educate children to be active participants in a diverse democracy. The most recent issue focused on “Democracy in Action.” Yet a reader comment in the magazine represented an idea that had never occurred to me before.
The reader wrote: Please rethink using the word “tolerance.” Do you realize it implies tolerating the other? It implies that the other is lesser than you? In its use, you are saying we must TOLERATE the difference in others like we tolerate a trouble child or like we tolerate a troublesome aunt who has a different perspective. PLEASE change the word “tolerance” to a more positive (and not offensive, especially to POC) word like RESPECT or APPRECIATION.
The magazine’s staff agrees the word “tolerance” is insufficient to convey the work it does. It has started what will surely be a long and difficult process to change the magazine’s name.
I’m also going to strive to find a different way of expressing my beliefs of not just respect and appreciation for people different from myself, but to express the inclusion I feel is necessary for my country and my world to survive. As we have faced the terrors of climate change disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of white supremacists in our country and government and the stark horror of four years of the worst president in our history, it’s vital that we all come together against these threats.
That said, I recognize I have serious anger issues when it comes to trying to respect the views of Donald Trump, the Republicans, and those who support them. I can’t and never will respect racism. I can’t and never will respect a political philosophy that denies women the right to make their own decisions about their bodies, that does everything in its power to suppress the votes of Blacks and other minorities, that persecutes those minorities in countless ways and that strives to make the wealthy more powerful and wealthy at the expense of all others. I can’t and never will respect those views and the people who espouse them.
But I can work to end the hate I have for these people as I work to remove them from their positions of power. I can work to regain my belief that their supporters can be redeemed. Whenever they go low, I can try to go high. It won’t be easy. As Bruce Banner once told Captain America, “I'm always angry.”
Stay safe, stay well and be excellent to one another. I’ll be back soon with more stuff.
© 2020 Tony Isabella
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