The older I get the more I realise that so much of the story of incidents are suppressed. That our role as grown ups is to observe and ask questions. To never accept anything unless it is through our own experience, and even then to be sure to get the whole picture.

The discipline required to do this is counter to our training as social human beings….yet it is only with this type of applied rigor that we can have any right to cast an opinion.

Rights must always go hand in hand with responsibilities. Rights without responsibility is entitlement. Responsibility without rights is slavery.

To take the responsibility to do the work of understanding the whole picture…the history, the personal experience, the sequence of events, the hidden and suppressed story…with an objectivity rooted in a deep intent to understand…this is the role of the mature adult. Then we have the right to an opinion.

It’s hard. But it is worth it.

Photo credit: H.Adam via Compfight(of an old map to demonstrate that divisions of territories have often been made by the colonial impulse without any consideration of tribal or ethnic groups.)