A Sacred Duty

Related Reading:
Life | Pains Birthed
Culture | Stigma or Excuses?

As I close my eyes and drift away to a land where there is love, health, peace and blessings. I wanted to take the time to think and reflect.

    Similar to the thoughts I wrote yesterday, my thoughts once again stem from the same thought post entitled: Life | Pains Birthed. This time I wanted to focus upon the point that was written in the dedication section, geared towards the emergency services. We could take one of these which are the police. With a duty to serve and protect. However, fear, hatred, racial profiling, and prejudices often overrides this mission. We can relate this view to the silent movement started by Colin Kapernick, however; I wanted to think about the idea of minority populations working and living alongside majority populations. This can only be achievable if all segments of the populations realize that, services such as the police are working for the common good of all members of society. If this view was held by all, including racialized populations, then maybe the previous ideas of police brutality or racial profiling can be diminished, or even on the road to being diminished. Because really the focus needs to turn upon action, behaviours, and what is deemed harmful for individuals, communities, and the common good of society. Now I'm not saying that racism / discrimination does not exist. I am saying that just as what what is preferred within a culture is selected or discarded, the same can be said about the ownership of individual actions. Sometimes it is easy to lay the blame on racism, rather than accepting a behaviour.

     This is also where we can think about the idea of normalizing - sometimes behaviours that are termed as bad by some, may actually be thought of as good and quite normal. Especially where there are invisible cultural norms that must be abided by, to create a sense of group belonging. However, when actions, behaviours cross limits, boundaries and become hurtful to others and even the self, then this is really where the idea of the common individual / societal good is laid as a priority.

     Whilst a behaviour can be termed as good or bad, and there are consequences for this. Individuals must realize that there is also opportunity for rectification, resolutions, to once reintegrate in a flourishing healthy society. For the purposes of identifiers it is important to understand what the behaviour is and why it is labeled as good or bad, the dichotomous labelling has to be removed when the individuals seek to rehabilitate for integrating back in a society. Especially when actions are not directly the fault of the individual, but part of something larger. 

My thoughts to share with love & kindness! :)

Notes: These thoughts were originally hand-written on January 19th, 2019.
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