"When we shrink from the world, our souls shrink, too,” I agree with Loeb’s quote. I have found myself in situations where I feel the need to speak up but I keep quiet. Loeb says “ Swallowed words act like caustic acids, eating at our gut”. I usually feel my temperature go up and my face go red, that’s how I know I’m harming myself by keeping my feelings bottled up.
When we are silent about a certain matter that is important to us, like our ethnicity, we are detaching ourselves from the world.Detaching ourselves from issues around us makes us tourists to the world. Acting like tourists (keeping quiet) may seem like we don’t care about what happens in our society. The problem is as human beings we should care because we have a conscience and with that a soul.
One of the reasons to keeping quiet is intimidation; we usually don’t speak our mind because we are afraid of what others might think. We as human beings revolve around the impressions we make as people but what impression are we making if we are not being true to ourselves? You are living a life of lies if you are not being true to yourself and to not do this you need to speak up. We should not shrink because we are afraid of what others might think. Even if you stand alone like Derrick Bell, it is better to keep your integrity and identity than to lose yourself.
Where would we be if people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King wouldn't have kept their stance? I'm glad they didn't shrink from the world.
Wow! I really liked what you said Zitlaly and I am definitely on your side. I feel the same way, my temperature would go up and my voice will start shacking, when I start speaking up about anything to public. But the moment I am done it feels relief and it feels right and I would be glad that I did it! According to what you said, “Acting like tourists (keeping quiet) may seem like we don’t care about what happens in our society.” However, people might say that they do care, but there is nothing to do about it or someone else will do it and speak up instead of them doing it. The only thing that I disagree with you that I think it’s better to stand up with people as a whole, united together, because that would make our voice much stronger than by just ourselves and of course that doesn’t always work. There is an exception to every rule.
ReplyDeleteHey, great post! I really feel the same way about standing tall even if you are the only one. Its been said that evil prevails when good men do nothing. So even if seems like you are the only good guy fighting, keep on fighting! Another re-assuring thing is, that we wont stand alone forever. Our society seems to follow a domino-mob mentality. When one person makes a stand, it starts a chain reaction of others who feel the same but were just afraid to stand alone. Soon enough many others follow suit. The hard part is to tip that first domino! thats all for now- great job!
ReplyDelete