You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. – Morpheus The Matrix

I once heard once you know a thing, you can’t “unknow” a thing. Once you see something you cannot unsee it and once you know the truth, fundamentally know the truth, it is difficult and uncomfortable to pretend as if you do not know what is happening around you. Lately, some days I feel as if I am in the Matrix. Surely, I cannot be the only one that sees what is happening all around me and wonders, ‘did I somehow take the wrong pill’? Now is not the time for #alternativefacts. Now is that time to know the truth, to stand in that truth and to stand with someone and speak the truth.

Silence Is No Longer An Option

I’m just an innocent bystander I don’t want to get involved
Perhaps if I pretend I don’t see injustice I will be absolved
I’m just an innocent bystander but I support you from afar
Don’t you see the safety pin I have adorning my scarve?
I’m just an innocent bystander what can I really do?
Why should I stand with them and fully speak the truth?

Because if you don’t then who will?
Perhaps you are here to be a voice
Perhaps you are here for such a time as this
Perhaps life is presenting you with an opportunity to stand up, to speak out
To be a shout in the middle of silence and believe me silence does speak
It is the native tongue of lemmings and sheep
Those that simply go along with the herd
And instead of being heard they offer not a word

Good people were silent during slavery
Good people were silent during the Holocaust
They remained silent when people fought for Civil Rights
They remained silent during the Flint Water Crisis
Good people remained silent during the fight for equality for all people no matter who they love
Good people remained silent as Black bodies lay in the street
They remained silent when children were bombed in Aleppo
They remained silent as children’s bodies washed up on shores
They remained silent as dogs bit those fighting to protect water in Standing Rock
As Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

If WE are truly going to battle injustice
It will never be accomplished underneath the veil of silence
We must have the courage to break through the silence and say, “Enough! I stand with them because this is not right!”
Change happens when ORDINARY people stand up and become EXTRAORDINARY
Oftentimes at the expense of themselves for the uplifting of someone else
What are you willing to sacrifice?
Can you use your privilege for purpose?
Can you vow not to be muted?
The plane is on fire!
And if we burn, YOU burn too!
There is no way out because as Dr. King said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
AND SILENCE IS NO LONGER AN OPTION!