Conflict of Thought…

By Joyce Davis

The world around us seems to be split in half. We chose sides based on politics, race, gender, or even Iphone vs Android. Is that human nature? I remember one of the lessons from English where the lesson was old literature and we had to decide if it was man vs man, man vs the wild or man vs himself. Every bit of it was a man vs something; we just had to decide who the ‘enemy’ was. Who was the conflict with? The truth is in human nature we are always in conflict with something or someone. It is the nature of life.

After you choose a side you then go into defense mode of the side you have chosen. We tend to make excuses for the side that we have chosen. No matter who we are, we protect those that are on ‘our’ side. Even if we do not necessarily agree. We call this support. Can you support someone by telling them that they are wrong? I know that is an odd question but it is an honest question. Sometimes I wonder if you can be honest with the people that we support.

I used to love Lance Armstrong. I loved how he was a survivor of cancer and he still won races in the Tour De France. I would get so angry at the haters accusing him of being on drugs. I was a fan and I believed him and I was vocal about taking up for him. We all know how that story ended. Since then, I am not so quick to say much about the ones I love because these are people we do not know.

Recently Sha’Carri Richardson was banned from the Olympics for smoking weed. She admitted she did it so there is no dispute if it happened. What I have observed is everyone making excuses for her. They explain how her mom passed away and she needed to find some comfort. They say weed is legal in some states. I have seen people say that keeping her off the Olympic team is just America being racist. How on earth is that racist? My sister and I talked about the subject and she explained how the system is set up for white business owners to make billions from selling weed, but then punishes black and brown people for consuming it. I pointed out that had she been white the consequences would have been the same. So what prompted this article was a question to myself. If Michael Phelps was put off the swim team for smoking weed would I be outraged about it? I do love Michael Phelps and happen to be an even bigger fan after he supported Naomi Osaka when she spoke of her depression and not wanting to speak to reporters. Yet I would say he knew the rules and he will be great on the next one.

I often wonder if we use the word way too much. I had a girlfriend who called everyone a racist. If you said something that was disagreeable, she called you a racist. Wasn’t a long relationship at all. Everyone is not a racist and everything is not racism. One way to water down any cause is overusing any term. I try my best not to outright call people racist only. I try to have a body of their ‘work’ before me. Seems like an easy task is to call a Republican seeing how a lot of them protect a racist former president but even with them I refrain.

I see Miss Richardson as a story of man vs himself/herself. If she has not cried racism then I will not be one to cry racism either. I see it as her personal struggle. I think about how she must feel seeing everyone defend you for something you have taken responsibility for? Where is the lesson for younger kids? Do we tell them that if you are Black you can get away with breaking the rules because people fear being called racist? Miss Richardson has made me a lifelong fan because she took responsibility. She could have stayed quiet and let her fans fight it out for her. She made a point to make public statements to say she was human and she made a mistake.

This conflict of thought has been eating at me. I fight against racism every chance I get. I also try to be fair every chance I get. We are in such a divided place that we are willing to ignore the mistakes of others because we agree with them on a political or any other basis. So many times, I have scrolled past a tweet that I thought was wrong but not my place to correct people. We accept hate from those who we consider friends or supporters but if we see the other side do it, we call them out. Shame on you saying “if you hate Pelosi I will follow you.”

I wish there was no hate. No man vs man or man vs nature but if you read anything in literature you find that most stories have conflict.

[si-contact-form form=’2′]