open letter

To you, the citizens of the United States of America, we need to talk. We need to talk about how we talk. No longer do we communicate freely, instead we all watch what we say, afraid that we may offend somebody’s religion, lifestyle, race, culture. No longer can we spontaneously say what is on our mind or how we really feel. It is agreed that yes, stereotypes should NOT be spoken because they DO generalize and are not true for all individuals. But how a person thinks IS true; it is true to them. Thus, when we speak about controversies, we must communicate intuitively, free from inhibitions, and we must speak independently. Independently means processing the information you take in from news, teachers, friends, peers, authority figures, and making your OWN opinion on it. Taking in information from all sides, all races, all cultures, all political parties, all lifestyles, and then deciding how all of that fits into your own lifestyle, your own culture, your own opinion - how all the information fits you. This may seem like a daunting task, and up until now, you all have proven that it is one. And up until now, we all allowed others to make pieces of information fit us. We allow ourselves to be TOLD what our opinion should be. And up until now, we have been too lazy to bother to think otherwise. So let’s take a look at the world we live in outside of our own microlives and see the world beyond as the one thing that we are all responsible for. Our duties include being an individual – owning your independent opinion – and using our voices instead of only our ears. Now we must speak independently and communicating unreservedly in order to serve our world. Famous MLK Jr. said it best in his Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break the Silence speech, “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” When we speak about war, the time is now to become an individual.

-the world