#123: The Spectrum of Goodness

Okay. Buckle up folks.

It's a fact of the human condition that, however we each individually measure value, we are never as "good" as we want to be. We all fall short.

That's really okay. In fact, it's probably for the best that we all want to be better than we actually are. It's what keeps us trying and improving. We would be stagnate and dull creatures if we didn't want to measure up to a higher standard.

The thing is, for every positive value, there is an opposite value. It's a spectrum, not a check box. You are not strong OR weak. You are not kind OR cruel. You are not generous OR stingy. You--and every person in the world--lie somewhere on a long spectrum that runs between each of these pairs of values.

And, here's the rub, what that logically means is that if you are not as kind as you want to be, it also means that you are more cruel. If you are not as strong, not as rich, not as clever, not as thoughtful as you want to be, then--by the nature of reality--this also means you are weaker, poorer, slower, and more callous than you wish you were.

This is simply fact. It doesn't make you, personally, good or bad. Not being perfect doesn't make you horrible. It just makes you human.

Now, why did I say all this?

Let's talk about racism.

Just like every other character trait, there is a spectrum from "racist" to "not racist". No one is all the way at "not racist." We want to be. We strive to be. We know we should be, because we know it's wrong to judge people based on their color and none of us want to be that kind of person.

And yet, all of us are. None of us makes it all the way to "not racist." And, since none of us is as "not racist" as we want to be, you know what that means.

We're all more racist than we wish we were.

And, frankly, we don't really care to admit that.

Now, admitting you have a problem is the first step to correcting it, right? Whether you learned that from AA or your therapist or a TED talk, we've all heard it and we know it's true. Admitting there is an issue is the first step. But not a single one of us wants to admit that we're more racist than we'd like to be.

Which makes it really hard to start correcting the issue.

Now, I get it. I really do. We want to be good people. And racism is bad. If we're somewhat racist, then that calls into question everything we think about our own inherent goodness, doesn't it?

As I get older, I am learning not to think that way. I am learning to understand that what makes someone a "bad" person is a refusal to learn to be better. When people embrace their negative qualities, when they don't care about their impact on others, when they turn a blind eye to the harm they cause... THAT is when I judge a person as bad.

But, for all that I'm really angry at humanity right now, in the end I have always believed that most people have a shot at redemption, if they want it. And I don't mean a magical cleansing of their soul by an outside source. I mean accepting where they lie on each value spectrum, and trying to move consistently towards the place they WANT to be, rather than the place that they ARE.

If you WANT to be better, and you're willing to WORK to be better, then you're a fine person in my book. No matter how far that journey towards "better" may be for you.

But the first step is admitting that you have progress to make. That there's room to grow. That you're still a little more racist than you'd like to be.

So, as we have all these conversations on racial injustice, and you find yourself feeling uncomfortable, and not wanting to be labeled as a racist?

Let that go.

You're racist. So am I. We all are. And that's not just the white "we" (although for sure, the white "we" has a huge and painful burden to bear there.). That's the human "we." We're racist. Because we're not perfect, and we live in a racist world. If your discomfort stems from not wanting to be labeled as a racist, you gotta let that go.

It's only getting in the way.