Just a tap!

"It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just. He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we use our limited time on earth. It is an awesome opportunity." ~Cesar Chavez

Stopping at a stoplight one morning recently, we felt a jarring motion from the back of our car. As I put on the 4-way flashers, my husband got out of the car to inspect the damage. A lady hopped out of the car behind us exclaiming, "We didn't hit you!" 'Well,' he says, 'somebody did!' 'Maybe we tapped you!' she conceded. Fortunately there wasn't any damage and we continued on our way.

However, while I found it more than slightly amusing, I also found the exchange stayed with me. For me this encounter illustrates one of the problems with our society today. While it wasn’t all right to hit our bumper, it apparently was all right to tap it. In other words the degree of the action, not the action itself is what constitutes wrong-doing.

This translates in everyday living to it being OK to give a woman in a hijab that ‘look’, while shooting men because they are in a mosque definitely isn’t. They both exhibit the same root behaviour: islamophobia. While it is all right to keep that extra $10 you get in change, it isn’t all right to steal $5000. You can deny part of society a living wage, but it isn’t all right to starve someone to death or deprive them of medical attention. Really??

Apparently it is not the acts of injustice that we see around us that deter us so much as it is the degree of that injustice. Children learn at an early age that admitting they had their hand in the cookie jar does not bode well. They are punished for the act rather than rewarded for their honesty. It is no wonder that we grow into adults who buy into the prevailing tone of society. It takes courage to step outside of the crowd, to acknowledge those small acts of injustice and perhaps rick bringing the same behaviour down on ourselves. We are constantly hearing of the necessity ‘to stay under the radar’ in order to stay safe.

Pope Francis, looking at this phenomenon a little differently, wrote in Evangelii Gaudium: “My hope, is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving and Jesus does not tire of saying to us: ‘Give them something to eat.’”

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