Little more than a week ago, the entire country was struck with sorrow as headlines about yet another shooting flooded television screens, newspapers, social media and more.
A man took the lives of many at a historically African-American church one evening. The shooter was attending their bible study, which he listened to for about an hour before he decided to continue with his deadly plan.
This tragic shooting in Charleston, South Carolina brought not only mourning, but awakening realizations for many Americans. Thousands of people across the world had much to say about the tragedy.
Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and widely recognized author, had a wise and worrisome message to pass on to the United States:
“In my lifetime I have seen such great progress. Though racial-based hate is still very much alive, as last night so violently reminded us. But I worry about a new hate that is growing in our great nation. I fear our intolerance of one another is the new battleground of evil. Today many feel it is okay to hate someone who thinks differently than you do.”
Carson is correct. We have seen great progress, not only in his lifetime, but in our country’s lifetime. Our country abolished slavery, gave women the right to vote and to pursue a degree, declared same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states just this week and so much more.
Although we have begun fixing many of our nation’s greatest mistakes, it seems that the stem of them all has resulted from a common hate that Carson pointed out: intolerance. Even though all of these issues may have been systematically corrected, the fact that they all share the same root doesn’t really scream progress.
If you want to save your sinking ship, emptying the water over and over again from the inside won’t really help you at all. What would really solve the issue is to patch the hole the water is seeping in from. The hole in our ship is intolerance.
Children need to be taught from an early age that it is okay to think differently than others. It is okay to follow different religions. It is okay to have a completely different belief of religion, or to not believe in any religion. Having a different color of skin does not make you less important, or more important than anyone else. It is not okay to target someone of a different sexual orientation just because you may not agree with it. Diversity is a good thing.
The question is, how do we get the entire world to help patch the hole of intolerance?