Today we have a new president! The progress our country has made is absolutely incredible. When people ask me, “how on earth do you expect to create change?” I have to wonder– “really? where have you been?” And when people say, “that’s just the way it is, some things will never change.” Oh! How short our memory is! Just look at the past century- the change- the progress- the hope. Today was just… I’m speechless about it right now actually. It’s just… listening to people share their stories of racial injustices, and how they “never believed they’d see the day,” it just, it absolutely blows my mind.

I have to be totally honest. A few months ago when Barack Obama became the President-elect, immediately the news stations started talking about African-American progress. It seemed every channel I flipped to had people crying and going on and on about race. So, here’s where it kind of hurts to be honest. The stories made me frustrated, and I naively turned to my roommates and complained, “why aren’t we past this yet? I hate that it’s even still an issue!” Because I truly feel like its not among my closest friends here at NYU and at home. I grew up in New York, at a (diverse) private school that taught the importance and equality of every human. Many of my best friends growing up didn’t look like me or share my faith, and I never really noticed. But I didn’t have to try to not notice either- it wasn’t purposefully “politically correctly” ignored. It just didn’t matter, and it never crossed my mind to categorize people by the color of their skin or religion. So, when I sat there watching TV, I became frustrated. The newscasters celebrating, and continually talking about race, came across as blatantly racist. Until I really started listening to the stories. Racial injustice isn’t history. Yes there was slavery and Jim Crow laws, and the KKK, but there’s still more college age black males in prison than in college. Older folks can recall memories of segregated schools and water fountains, and while I can’t resonate with that- I can look at the South Bronx and know that something is still deeply wrong. Which is when I stopped myself and joined the celebrating. Inner-city black kids, when asked who they want to be when they grow up, don’t have to look to 50 cent, or fifty years back at Martin Luther King Jr. They can proudly say, “the president of the United States,” and believe its a possibility. We must continue addressing racial injustice in the world. As much as I like to pretend it doesn’t exist, I know it does. You can’t spend two weeks intensively learning about Genocide and pretend it’s not still an issue.

On to Genocide… Why should we care?

I can only attempt to understand the horrors of genocide, but I have to make every effort to understand the incomprehensible. It’s necessary for the victims, for the perpetrators, for the future, and for myself. Just listening to the facts and to the stories of survivors is an act of courage. I ask you to join me. “Why?” you might ask, “what’s in it for me?” Well, besides sleepless nights and interesting dinner conversations, I’m not really sure. But I can guess.

Learning about genocide is the same as any painful experience; it will either make you a stronger, better person, or a bitter person. You might find a new appreciation for life, beauty, and good, or become disheartened, depressed about the world, and build up walls so as to not hurt again. I’m struggling right now- I want to just crawl in bed. In the back of my head, I know that ignoring pain does not make life easier; ignoring pain greatly inhibits ones ability to love and to live life to the fullest. Blah blah blah- so cliche! But I think C.S. Lewis said it very well,

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. Wrap it around carefully with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket of your self-ishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

Pain happens. Genocide happens. People are slaughtered and raped and we can choose to ignore it. It’s easy because we never have to see it. We can just change the channel when anything makes us uncomfortable. Smile and nod to people on the street handing out flyers, but keep walking. Mark the e-mails from “savedarfur.org” as junk. It’s really, really easy to ignore, but we do humanity and ourselves a disservice when we look the other way. It lets the violence continue. After the Holocaust, the world vowed “never again.” Never again would the world sit idly by while people were systematically murdered. But it has happened again- more than once, and it will continue to happen unless we ask the tough questions: Why does genocide happen? How are some people so cruel? Are some people evil and some good?  Or do each of us have the same capacity for acting as an agent for good or for evil? Are circumstances and events in our childhood the deciding factor for who we become? Should I really use the two categories of good and evil, or should there be more? What is wrong in the world? What is wrong in my country? What is wrong in my community? What can I change within myself? What can we all do to make this world a better place?

By caring and learning about the atrocities committed around the world, we will hurt, but we will also be freer to live. Hm. Let me explain with an example. Remembering, and letting ourselves feel for humanity is essential for our survival of the self. When one person suffers from a traumatic event, he or she recovers fastest when letting themselves feel it. Studies show that Holocaust victims who later are hospitalized for psychosis are silent of their days during the Holocaust. It’s as if their memories have been erased, and they refuse to talk. On the other hand, survivors who were not hospitalized share clear memories of their experience. There is no denial or repression evident. click here for more information about the study. Suzanne Kaplan interviewed one survivor who explained that memory let him keep a sense of self during his time in the concentration camp. Those who could keep a narrative of their trauma went on to lead relatively normal lives, while those who lost their story, lost themselves. The connection to humanity at large might not seem apparent at first and I know I’m kind of stretching it, but.. If humanity’s one body, and we choose to ignore feeling for the people of Rwanda, or Cambodia, or Bosnia, or the victims of Hurricane Katrina or the Tsunami- then we risk our sanity.

At some point in life, most people experience a huge “oh.” It can come early, after some childhood abuse, or it can come after a near death experience, a trip to a third world country, or the death of a family member. It’s an “oh” that makes one ask, “what is the point?”or “how could this happen?” Some choose to ignore the questions, others silence them with alcohol, drugs, sex, and hobbies. These questions are especially poignant when talking about genocide. They are hard questions, but I have to address them to keep my sanity. Maybe at the end of this journey I’ll share my own thoughts of “why,” and I would love to hear yours. But, for humanity’s sake, I plead with you: learn with me; care with me; hurt with me, and ask the hard questions.