ME TOO

Me too.

It sounds innocuous enough, a throwaway acknowledgement. But when it comes in the form of a Tsunami, the power of those two words can’t be denied or ignored. The scars of the physical and emotional abuse are always there, like old tattoos that lose their definition over time, morphing into ugly stigmata. Shame worn like a birthmark, perhaps unseen to others but always with the wearer, haunting.

More recent events parallel that emotional and physical hurt. Hurricanes in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, extreme flooding, tornados. The fires in California, drunken molesters, unrestrained, devastating property and lives.

We look to callus leaders, narcissistic, too infatuated with their own image to function beyond a five-foot perimeter. We condemn Harvey Weinstein, whose admitted actions spawned so many to say: “me too”, but elect a president with an even more despicable resume of abuse.

Often we get the God, and the leaders, we deserve.

Are devastating hurricanes and floods the new normal? Are they the harbinger of a dying earth? As our greed dumps its toxic waste in the oceans and turns living rainforests into dead acres of mud, are there repercussions? Should the wealthy few make a profit equivalent to the combined incomes of the tens of thousands who bought their development homes in floodplains? Have we so altered forested areas of California with the kindling of new homes that natural wildfires inevitably turn into inferno spewing monsters that can’t be contained?

Has our society relegated the safety of the weak to the authority of the twisted strong?

My own abuse came at the hands of a camp counselor and at the YMCA, both assumed to be safety zones for kids. Young women experience abuse and mistreatment in a society that allows the abusers to be in charge. How often will white males judge themselves, and how unbiased the outcome if they do?

In the big picture, these things are all related, part of an illness that infects our society and our attempts to enslave nature itself. It’s a suicidal path we walk.

There is hope. We must acknowledge climate change and fight the greed that spawns it. Women and minorities must unify to become an unstoppable majority that demands and expects true equality. They must overwhelm the old guard with a multicolored flood of support for a new normal, in a place where when we say: “All men are created equal” we must mean all humans, all races, all genders. We can no longer allow the 1% to profit at the detriment of the 99% and we must elect leaders who lead by example, understanding that they work for us, not the other way around.

We find ourselves in a place where our collective apathy has put us. We can end the cycle of damage and self-cannibalization if we combine in a common goal to do so.

Fred Rogers said it best from his hood of every man: When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

Whatever we look for and think about, we will probably find.

Look for the good. Talk about it, praise it, emulate it. That is our single hope for salvation in a new model. We can no longer give away our power to others. If we don’t unify in a common goal of good health for our society and our planet, if we don’t say “enough is enough” and work together as a species and as guests on this earth, if we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we can expect more of the same, but worse.

Is it too late? I look for the good,the unheralded and unsung, people doing the right thing, the heroic thing, because that too is part of our our nature, built into the DNA of our species. It causes me to believe: No, it is not too late for us to save ourselves.

Now is the time for all of us to say:

Me too