I made a decision Monday night.
I was listening to The Busted Halo Show. Fr. Dave and Rabbi Brad Hirschfield were discussing the recent police shootings and hate filled rhetoric from all sides. They quoted Martin Luther King about how you can't fight darkness with more darkness. They discussed scripture about how to respond to attacks on yourself.
And I realized something. The shroud was off my badge for less than 24 hours last week. There have been something like 11 or 12 of my brothers murdered in the last week -- in vicious, direct attacks on them for nothing more than doing their job. I'm filled with rage and grief and sorrow. I've seen a President who is apparently oblivious of how his reactions have fed this bonfire. I so badly want to simply say "if that's how they want it -- I'm done. I'll treat them the way they say I do."
I realized, as I listened to Fr. Dave and Rabbi Brad that I won't give the people spewing hate, the people trying to create division under the guise of promoting harmony, the people who just plain refuse to accept anything but the narrative of hate that their being fed... I refuse to give those people that power over me. I won't become what they say I am.
I'll continue to treat the people I encounter as people -- unless and until they choose to create the circumstances that demand I treat them differently. I'll continue to treat everyone with dignity and respect -- perhaps especially those who can't bring themselves to treat me that way because of the uniform I wear, the job I do, the profession I follow. I'll still do whatever I have to so that I can return home to my family at the end of the shift, make no doubt about that... but I won't let these haters make me into the monster they see me as.
I was listening to The Busted Halo Show. Fr. Dave and Rabbi Brad Hirschfield were discussing the recent police shootings and hate filled rhetoric from all sides. They quoted Martin Luther King about how you can't fight darkness with more darkness. They discussed scripture about how to respond to attacks on yourself.
And I realized something. The shroud was off my badge for less than 24 hours last week. There have been something like 11 or 12 of my brothers murdered in the last week -- in vicious, direct attacks on them for nothing more than doing their job. I'm filled with rage and grief and sorrow. I've seen a President who is apparently oblivious of how his reactions have fed this bonfire. I so badly want to simply say "if that's how they want it -- I'm done. I'll treat them the way they say I do."
I realized, as I listened to Fr. Dave and Rabbi Brad that I won't give the people spewing hate, the people trying to create division under the guise of promoting harmony, the people who just plain refuse to accept anything but the narrative of hate that their being fed... I refuse to give those people that power over me. I won't become what they say I am.
I'll continue to treat the people I encounter as people -- unless and until they choose to create the circumstances that demand I treat them differently. I'll continue to treat everyone with dignity and respect -- perhaps especially those who can't bring themselves to treat me that way because of the uniform I wear, the job I do, the profession I follow. I'll still do whatever I have to so that I can return home to my family at the end of the shift, make no doubt about that... but I won't let these haters make me into the monster they see me as.
