On realising how different can mean the same

I read these super sad stories about young kids in backwater parts of America killing themselves when they realised they were gay. I realise that anti-homophobia is becoming a bigger aspect of this blog than I had originally ever thought it would. But homophobia isn't just about hating people who are attracted to the same gender as them through the biological makeup of their bodies. It is about discriminating against anyone who is different from yourself, whether that manifests through racism, religious bigotry, sexism or homophobia.

The problem with these terms is just that - they are words. They segregate people further into separate categories. But why stop there? Why not separate the ginger people, the blond people, the brown and black haired people. Then subdivide them further depending on if they have blue or brown or green eyes. Further still into fat or thin, left-handed or right-handed.

My point here, of course, is that everyone is different from everybody else, yet we are all essentially the same, only in slightly different costumes. And while we should celebrate the differences for their specific good points, we should not continue to segregate ourselves merely on these principles. Every white, black, gay, straight, male and female human being wants love and food and warmth, regardless of their aesthetic attributes. If you realise this then that fear of 'the other' or the concept that 'they are different from me, because...' falls apart, leaving the bare bones of human morality and unity.

I am saddened every day, when I read another report in the paper, about how some people still cannot see that as they shoot or persecute 'the other side', they are in fact, attacking their families and themselves. We should find joy in the fact that there is anyone else in the world like us at all. Who feels the way we do and sees the world the way we do. You can't have that with a cat or rifle.

Anyway, I had to get that out. Originally I got it out in the form of a poem, which is below. While you read it, think about how great it is that, no matter how different you or I are, we both have the capacity to feel the same about the world we both share.


UNCOLLECTION

I guess it can be good to be different
Even if it doesn’t seem that way
We think in labels often
Soften though we might
The blows we fear
So very near
From day to day

We know it doesn’t matter
But it doesn’t change who’s
Smart or thick
Or thin or fatter
Or lots of other things
That we choose to see as separate
But people aren’t a tally chart
We’re not so uncompassionate

It’s in the way you say it
Or the certain standing air
Not waiting
Not lonely or anticipating
You’re an individual
Yes, you are
We are, we’re there
We’re all a group so uncollected
And that, at least, is fair