Wentz’s Family,
Today is the first day of school for many children, including my own daughter. For weeks now, I have overheard her conversations with her friends as they prepare for the new year. “How will I fit in? Will I have the right backpack? Will I have the right hairstyle? Will I say the right things?” High school is the ultimate microcosm of a judgmental world. Every pimple, every misspoken word, every little difference that makes one person unique becomes the potential for mockery and alienation. Of course, every school district in America claims to have a zero-tolerance policy on bullying, but anyone who has kids, was a kid, or is a kid knows that if every teenager who ever made fun of one of their classmates was suspended, then there would be no kids left to attend the school.
The impact of feeling different may be magnified in high school, but it certainly doesn’t end there. No matter how old we may get, we continue to see our differences pointed out and used by those seeking power to justify treating certain segments of society as less valuable or less respectable than others. It takes a conscious effort on our part to resist buying into the idea that someone who is different from us in one way must be different from us in most ways. It just isn’t true. Do not be deceived by those who would try to make you see anyone who is not just like you as if they were an enemy. I leave you with the poetic wisdom of Maya Angelou in which she states, “In minor ways we differ; in major we’re the same…We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
HUMAN FAMILY by Maya Angelou
I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.
The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.
I’ve sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I’ve seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man.
I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I’ve not seen any two
who really were the same.
Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.
We love and lose in China,
we weep on England’s moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we’re the same.
I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.