Back in 2008, in a speech commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King, President Obama elaborated on his famous “arc of justice” quote:
“Dr. King once said that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. It bends towards justice, but here is the thing: it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own ways put our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice….”
My best friend and I find ourselves gchatting the same thing to each other at least once a week: “people are the worst.” It might be in response to a political ad, or a terrible headline, or a horrific crime, or just the way the world seems to be behaving at the particular moment in time. It seems a lot less common that we get to say the phrase I infinitely prefer, “people are the best.”
The photo of Balpreet posted on Reddit
So this was a special week when twice–twice!–I got to crow about the goodness in people, the badass-ery of people, the decency and strength of people. First, you may have read about a Sikh woman whose picture was posted on Reddit and then insulted by a bunch of ignoramuses. Some people would cry (and maybe she did, I probably would have), some people would rant and rave (I definitely would), and some people write extremely eloquent, articulate explanations and seek to educate instead of judge. This woman, Balpreet Kaur, is one of those. Read her letter and then response and you will find yourself thinking, for once, people really are the best.
Then, yesterday, a story broke about a Wisconsin anchorwoman who took the uneducated, rude, hurtful words of a viewer and made the story not about her weight, as he would have liked her to do, but about bullying. Jennifer Livingston, like Balpreet, just calmly explains exactly why this approach to her is disrespectful, damaging, and unwarranted. The viewer accuses her of being a poor role model for girls because she is overweight, when in fact Livingston’s response shows she is exactly the kind of role model I would want for my children.
Seriously, you guys, sometime people are just the coolest.
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