SPEAK UP ! PERSIST ! WE MUST !

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February 10, 2010

 

I have gone against the current and fought battles for justice since I was a teenager. What is most distressing about speaking up is that those who are elected or otherwise employed to do justice, to stand up for the underdog, to protect and defend, are "absent" - uninvolved, uncaring, unwilling to sacrifice their comfort to do what is right. 

 

Taking your complaint to the school principal or your landlord, you are branded as a trouble maker and there can be severe consequences. Taking your case to the police, you are ignored or rebuffed or even laughed at. Taking your claim to your members of government at any level, you are scorned at public meetings. If you write, you are granted a computerized acknowledgement of the receipt of your message.

 

At every level, when you stick out your neck to ask for justice, you are told, "Nobody did anything wrong." or, most often, "You're right. But this is not in our jurisdiction."

 

Your friends will encourage you. They will sometimes speak up to support you. But most of the time, you have to sacrifice your time, your energy and your very heart, to endure the frustration and rejection and - most often - being ignored in the hope that you will just give up and go away. And most people do just give up and go away.

 

I have fought for justice all my life - alone. It takes enormous stubbornness and a steel strong sense of right and wrong to persist against the current for months and even years, and there are not many people who can stand their ground.

 

But we must  !

 

Phyllis Carter

Some men see things as they are and ask, "Why?":

I dream things that never were, and say, "Why not?"

Robert Kennedy

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