The Struggle to Find Acceptance is Holding Back the Human Race

Growing up as a child, I was raised among a variety of different cultures that included European, Middle Eastern, American and Mexican societies. Before I was a young adult man, I had personally practiced Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism. I was acquainted with Buddhists and Muslims. Over that time, my ongoing, regular exposure pushed me from places of tolerance to compassion, which I considered to be two different things.

I remember tolerating gays and Muslims. They were in circles of of acquaintances I had. However, there were always lines drawn, particularly in my teens. Gays could get civil unions, but not marriages. Muslims could be citizens, but should have to endure additional rigors in order to retain citizenship.

It’s the qualifiers we put on people that make them outsiders. This happens in cultures around the world, and people in positions of privilege benefit from it. Their own status as the cultural standard earns respect and admiration, while people in minority positions, be that sexual, religious, ethnic, and so on, are forced to struggle for acceptance in the larger cultural landscape.

One people, no borders.

What that has created, in the 21st century, is a world that is more accepting but still full of hesitation at embracing the person next to them when differences exist. This leaves individuals in minority positions having to do absurd things for acceptance. Ethnic minorities change their names to sound more popularly ‘white’ and less ‘ethnic.’ Religious minorities practice in secret. Gay people in the United States continue to have to fear for their lives, and coming out continues to be an event precisely because we continue to stigmatize sexuality.

I'm not perfect in this, either. I continue to be a product of countless millennia of evolution, thousands of years of tribalism, and decades of socialization. I am better, but not perfect, in my acceptance of others. I still find the impulse, at times, to blame Islam — and have to check myself and remind myself, as Chitown Kev did in his diary, that gay individuals are victimized by members of religions and societies around the world, and not just any single one.

Greater acceptance, though, must be ongoing. We need to continue growing as a race so that loving each other is instinctual, even when there are vast cultural, religious, or sexual differences. As it stands, humanity is currently churning through generations of people who have to come together and unify simply for the right to exist. Imagine if that were not the case. Imagine if generations of people did not have to worry about fighting for acceptance. Imagine if they could focus their energies elsewhere, without having to worry if they would find equal standing before the law. Imagine if those energies could be put toward art and the sciences.

Which is not to argue that the work of activists of all backgrounds isn’t valuable. It is, in fact, necessary, and among the greatest works needed by mankind today. It is necessary, though, because we as a society continue to carry a fear of anyone different from ourselves. I want to imagine a time when this is no longer the case. I want to have dinner with friends without a person’s religion or sexuality causing antagonism or anxiety for some of the members present. I want the idealized vision of the United States, not the ugly truthful one, in which all people stand as equal citizens of equal value, with no one having to avert their eyes or bow their faces for fear of the majority’s anger.

I want to see the gay atheist stand beside the straight preacher and know both will have equal standing before society and the law. I want to see the Shia and Sunni Muslim enjoy equal rights and prosperity as they live side by side. I want to see the Nigerian, Venezuelan, French, and Chinese gathered at a single table in a society of human equals. I want every person to look at one other and not say “sir” or “ma’am” in deference, but to call one another “citizen,” with the pride and knowledge that the labor worker contributes as much to his society as the businessman, that the teacher gives as much as the soldier, and that the politician gives as much as the restaurant worker. Society is the sum product of all of us, not the few of us.

I want to see the equal society of humanity that can divert its energies to the maximization of its potential and the dream of taking its place among the stars. That will always be impossible, though, as long as we struggle simply to recognize our neighbor as human. So, I will dream of a better tomorrow, where acceptance is given, not fought for, in which we all stand shoulder to shoulder.

Essay: The Slippery Slope That Leads To Rape

All the world's a flutter with the insistence that we pay more attention to women's rights and voices. It's an era when the gentleman of yesterday can no longer be a man and the virtuous women that embodied society's honor can no longer be found. Of course, under such circumstances it becomes necessary for our society to look deeply into a mirror. Within it will not find the abyss, but the answers to the great malaise that possesses its when any conversation of sexual assault rears its ugly head. Quite obviously, in a world where the gentleman has become a relic of antiquity, it has become ever more incumbent upon women to guard themselves from the brute that is the 21st century man. I propose that women of all races and cultures look most closely to themselves to discover the secrets to guarding against the wiles of the sexually improprietous male.

Before we cast our sharpened eyes across the world, it falls to us to observe those most liberated of women, those of western society, are those who most obviously present the most prime of targets for the wandering invader. Or are we not to believe the word of that most upstanding symbols of civic virtue, the highly trained constables who daily risk their lives on our streets? Are we to doubt them when they say

'You know, I think we’re beating around the bush here. I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this, however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized."  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...

It should be quite obvious to even the least educated among us that a woman's mean of dressing is the most obvious of invitations to lude gentlemen callers. After all, though she be not a prostitute, she certainly seems to wear the uniform. Though perhaps, given the raucous uproars that have so greatly exaggerated the aggressive actions of police officers, you stand among those that cast a suspicious light upon those brave fellows that guard our safety. Then may we not at least agree that those who inhabit the ivory towers of our greatest intellectual institutions may be trusted when they argue that women are most likely fabricating these encounters?

"We have, we had, on this campus last semester three cases of young women who after having done whatever they did with the young men, and then it didn't turn out the way they wanted it to turn out -- guess what they did?" he said. "They went to [the university's Department of] Public Safety and said, 'He raped me.' http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

And even if one chooses, in the face of all secular statements, to question the authority of both our official constabulary as well as our guardians of intellectual progression, perhaps it may be agreed that at least the leaders of our great Western religions know best when they argue

"Well, there’s always a sin under other sin. There’s a root sin... ‘We have to find the sin in your life that caused your rape." http://america.aljazeera.com/...

Should it not be obvious to all by now that the women of our Western nations, freed from previous shackles, have perhaps overstepped bounds not set by man but by nature? It seems an analysis of the situation clearly outlines that those assaulted have by some manner invited the assault. Why, even a young girl can quite clearly be held personally accountable for the invitations she sends out. For what young man can restrain the bodily insistence of nature? Certainly the police of the great nation of Australia were not avoiding the duties of their office when they told this young, thirteen year old girl that

"I didn't have enough evidence to show, because I went out in clothes that was pretty much asking for it. " http://jezebel.com/...

Quite obviously our Western women have badly influenced the younger sort. However, turn not your gaze only to the naive youngsters being so viciously set upon by the negative examples being set in our culture. Even the women in the neighboring Middle East have taken to such lascivious behavior that they have quite rightly been set upon by their less inhibited male compatriots. Even the Imams of the Muslim religion have seen the influence it has had on their clothing.

“Women are not entitled to respect when they walk around without a Hijab. They are to blame for it when they are attacked,” Imam Shahid Mehdi said. http://www.frontpagemag.com/...

And before one assumes that the nefarious influences of Western inconsideration have affected only those of the Near East, watch closely its effects on our long treasured relationship with the good people of India, who argue

"A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy," Mukesh Singh, one of the six rapists convicted in the 2012 attack, says in the documentary, because "a decent girl won't roam around at 9 o'clock at night." http://www.vox.com/...

It must be set clear from all such evidence as we have before us that the problem lies clearly with women who have not taken the necessary precautions to safeguarding themselves from the less savory of our male societal members. Think not only of the most blatant examples of sexual extravagance women have demonstrated. Instead we must look to the loose morals of the 13 year old and the creeping degradation infecting the other great cultures of the world. For if a woman cannot, at a minimum, restrict her clothing to a hijab and restricting herself to staying indoors after nine in the evening, can she truly lay claim that she was raped?