People black

Last night I attended a performance/poetry reading organized by DJ Gathers, an AAC student. The young poets all showed courage, intensity, thoughtfulness and a willingness to speak their pain and anger. They talked about rape, abuse, body image, racism and more. It was a great deal to digest, but important to hear.

This experience reminded me of an idea and a commitment I made to myself in the recent past but had become lax on. It seemed to me that to use the terms “black people,” “white people,” “Christian people,” “Muslim people,” etc. put the emphasis on the adjective and so automatically put the emphasis on divisiveness.

So my idea and commitment was to refer to people black, people white, people Christian, people Muslim, etc. Identify our commonality first. This may seems simplistic, but language does count.