Change what you cannot accept without violence

"I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change; I am changing the things I can no longer accept." — Angela Davis

Angela Davis was a child of the 1950s, a time of segregated black schools in Alabama, of attempts to intimidate middle class blacks, bombing their houses and to drive them from the area. She set about changing the things she could not accept, joined a Quaker programme that placed black students from the South into integrated schools in the North.

There is no place for hate. Demeaning or brutalising another person or being cruel and using derogatory language, gestures or vandalism directed against them, for speech that attacks a person because of race, religion, ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation or gender identity. We should change the things we cannot accept yet do nothing that incites violence. The challenge is how we go about changing the things we cannot accept.

I hear people talking about freedom of speech. Nelson Mandela encouraged us by saying, "No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion." If this is so then we can also be taught to love, and I believe love comes more naturally to the human heart than hate.

The Angels remind me that there have been many great men and women who over time have tried to guide us with their words. Martin Luther King (1963) said, "Darkness cannot drive darkness; Light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; Love can do that."

We may not love some of the things people do, but we can still love them. Ernest Gaines, an African-American author born on a plantation in Louisiana, the eldest of 12, raised by his crippled aunt, who had to crawl to get around the house. Gaines grew up impoverished, living in old slave quarters on a plantation. He asked a relevant question, even for today, "Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?"

Don't hate what you don't understand, because you cannot hate other people without hating yourself. We can try changing the things we can no longer accept, and we might be surprised who stands with us when we speak out. Arohanui.
Shirley-Joy.