To tolerate or not to tolerate – is that even a good question let alone a good word?

I find the word tolerance a bit intolerable!

I decided in this month of June (Gay-Pride Month) to face and own my issues with this word. This month I attended a workshop called 'Undoing Racism' and being Gay-Pride month, I watched the PBS special ‘Stonewall Uprising’, a series on the history of the gay rights movement. These two groups (African-Americans/Blacks and the LGBTQ communities) have different histories of trauma, hate, and violence that are not to be compared. The stories are night and day and both desire and need different forms of understanding and respect.

But back to the word “tolerance” – and my issues with the word:

I find the word “tolerance” conundrum-like. I checked various word definitions/resources and fell down a rabbit-hole of tolerant and non-tolerant attitudes. I found conservatives agitated with liberals (and vice-a-versa) who felt the ‘other side’ was hypocritical when it came to being tolerant. Personally when I think of the word as it is used when referring to any and all of us tolerating one another -- the word fails me, and we fail one another.

If I am different from you and you ‘tolerate’ me – what does that make us?
- Encapsulated beings separated by an invisible wall with a false sense of making peace?
- Civilized?
Where is the dignity in this process? Where is the energy that truly brings our differences into a space that unites us because we decide instead to dance in awareness, responsibility, and honor?
Healing energy is found in the responsibility we have to listen, learn, own, and shift – not to “tolerate”.

My search became more hopeful when I clicked on the sites associated with the poetry of the word.


Where Monsters Can Grow
Beware of the monsters
Who dwell in the mind,
Who grow in the shelter
Of shadows they find.
Beware of the demons
Who hide from the light,
Who only survive
When our spirits lose sight.
Those creatures can thrive
Where our knowledge is low;
They fill in the spaces
Of what we don’t know.
Beware of the monsters
That cause us to hate,
To strike out in anger
When we can’t relate.
For ignorance darkens
The mind and the heart,
And helps all our monsters
To tear us apart.
But learning and thinking
Will strengthen us so
We won’t be the places
Where monsters can grow.
RHL

We have always had times that bring us to the brink of breaking down and/or rising up.
In my life time, samples of these times were the assassinations of JFK,RFK,MLK and Malcom X; the Vietnam War; the Civil Rights Movement; Women’s Movement; Stonewall and the LGBTQ Movement; the shootings at Ohio State in the 60s to the unending mass shootings today everywhere and anywhere; the HIV crisis of the 80s and 90s; from Watergate to the Clinton impeachment; September 11, 2001; the elections of GW Bush (and “dangling chads”), to Barrack Obama and massive shifts and celebrations, to Donald Trump and the visible rise of hate; the Keystone Pipeline and the First Nation Peoples movement at Standing Rock; from justices Clarence Thomas to Brett Kavanaugh; from #BlackLivesMatters to #MeToo…..just to name a roller coaster few.

Many times people say “we are in the worst of times.” There have been a gamut of “worst of times” and yes we are riding the wave of another one right now with the knowledge there will be many more. But we are here NOW – a peak moment in time once again! In each moment, yes, it is dark, dark, very dark. There - is no denying or minimizing this fact. Some groups have never not known hatred, racism, bigotry, violence, and inequity. White America has never known the continued bombardment of trauma experienced due to racism, and has little clue they are the creators, maintainers, leaders, and teachers of this massacre of malevolence. What are we learning? What are we not learning? What are our responsibilities, lack of response-abilities, and what do we need to own, do, or not do? What we do with this darkness makes ALL the difference in the world.

One event that happened during this current tide that might help us find a better word than Tolerance - is the event in Washington D.C, when a group of high school student tourists, Black Hebrew-Israelite protesters, and an elder of the Omaha Nation/Tribe of protesters – shall we say --- “clashed”. There are so many comments and ideas of who did what and why; I am not even going to go there. Instead, I want to focus on the responsibility we all have to learn from everything we do – be it a moment of courage and healing, or fear, ignorance and dis-ease. Every single side in this triangle of tragedy could have done better. So, what are the lessons and where are the teachers? THAT’s the question that might bring us together in knowledge and awareness, not separate us by tolerating or not tolerating.

It makes me cringe when asked “why didn’t the adults who supervised these youth, move in and help?” Nope, I am not even going to go there. I am a teacher and know what can happen with a group of adolescents who are continually bombarded by trauma, who then find themselves in the midst of trauma are also asked to be responsible for themselves and those who traumatize them. Welcome to - anything could go right – yet anything can also go…oh so wrong. My question is not where were the adults that day, but how did they prepare these youth knowing they could find themselves in the midst of their very first Washington D.C. protest? --- ESPECIALLY in the middle of this current wave-riding moment in time!

I listened to a pod-cast by Kaitlin B. Curtice who is a Native American Christian mystic, storyteller and poet. The pod-cast was about her book called “’Glory Happening: Finding the Divine in Everyday Places.’ She is also on the podcast group of ‘On-Being’ regarding teaching de-escalation. I cannot stop but wonder - did the adults that are the educators and guardians of these youth prepare them with the knowledge of what comes with crowds that protest? Did they guide them on what to do if the energies present start to clash and escalate? Did they discuss how any banner or message a group carries can trigger other protesting opinions and opposition – be it a flag, a sign, a ritual drum beat and chant of healing – to a MAGA hat.

Are any of us aware of what to watch for and steps to take to help us be response-able for every single human present at a protest – no matter what their opinion, what banner they are waving, what song they are singing, or what hat they are wearing?
Ms. Curtice and those that teach de-escalation tell us:
- Know your audience. If you don’t know your audience – then STAY AWAY!
- Adults need to be response-able.
- If people are yelling – model quiet and shared disagreement.
- Do not answer wrath with wrath.
- Insult and provocation are part of the game. Recognize it – don’t resurrect it!

Martin Luther King taught the wisdom of how to hold sacred space in the midst of intolerable violence and hate. He taught the power of Love in the presence of Injustice. As adults, we failed these youth by not giving them the lessons of Dr. King, Mahatma Gandhi, or a Thich Naht Hanh. We needed these teachers then and we need them now. We will always need them. Yet they are gone. But – are they? They are in you. They are in me. We have a responsibility to be response-able.

I invite us all to re-listen to these mighty teachers – but more importantly to own our ignorance and role; to be responsible for our own learning and to be response-able in the midst of ignorance and hate. We are the guides for each other – especially for our youth – who teach us every moment about our ignorance, giving us the chance to learn and model the power of Love in the midst of Injustice --- not to just “tolerate” the situation and one another.