When Bullies Live In White houses
When bullies live in white houses they can think their house is cleaner. Purer. Better.
When bullies live in a house that they see as cleaner, purer and better they can think they themselves are cleaner, purer and better.
When bullies think, they are better than others, they can also think their thinking, knowing and actions are better and more right than other’s knowing, thinking and actions.
When bullies think, their white house is better than other non-white houses they can surround themselves with people who also live in white houses.
When neighbors in white houses, believe their neighborhood is better because they all live in similar white houses they can surround themselves only with those like-minded people who believe like-mindedly.
Like-minded people who believe similarly can come to believe their similarities are an advantage. They can believe their advantage is superior and therefore the only right one.
Believing only in the advantage that matters to us can cause us to ignore what may matter to others.
Ignoring perspectives that differ from ours, can create conditions that foster imposition. Imposition can bring intolerance about.
No one color dwelling should become the home code standard for other dwellings.
No one color should become a standard value in and unto itself.
No one living in a house of any color should be allowed to impose that same color choice upon the inhabitants of other colored houses. An imposition such as that, just wouldn’t be right.
Imposition in any form has no rights. No authority. Opinions have no authority. Loud voice has no authority. Morally responsible laws and constitutional rights have authority.
Rights are color agnostic. Inalienable rights are gender, nationality and religiously neutral. Human rights are neutral. Rights are agnostic.
This is irrefutably true in any neighborhood. Anywhere. It’s truth is not dependent on or reserved for the color of one’s house.
The wealth of any neighborhood is reflected not only by family gross income or degree of positional power but rather in the richness of equality within its diversity.
What’s true for a neighborhood is especially true for a democracy. It is as inalienably true in our modern world as is the right to free speech.
We all house biases. Intolerances. Blind spots. Regardless of the color of our homes.
Housing biases, intolerances and blind spots can isolate, alienate. and create the very problems we can blindly blame on others for creating. Biases can bring forgetfulness about.
How we remind others of what we think needs remembering - depends on our own biases, intolerances and blind spots.
When some bullies live in some white houses, some of those bullies, can forget some of these things.