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In the eighties my parents moved to an all-black neighborhood in an apartment complex. I felt like such an outsider and scared. I got into fights (full on punching). I was between 6-7 years old and actually wanted to be black because they did not have to get a tan like I did!

But I was starting to build a dislike for them. Thankfully my mom set me straight. She let me know that when groups of the same people get together they have trouble with someone who is different. We were the minority. My mom never allowed me to be racist. I thank her so much for that.

A world with all women in charge would be abusing men. A world with all purple people in charge would be abusing whites. A world with 50% on one side and 50% on the other ... would be a world in constant conflict. Humanity is not (as you might have been told) "basically good".

The source of racism, anger, war ... is people.



i believe there's goodness in everybody- part of the challenge is structuring your own words+actions in a way that affords them a response that contains some measure of kindness or compassion. This is what the author of the post was doing by prioritizing getting along with her team; of course another part of the challenge is allowing others to be what they will be without being a doormat or adding to your own suffering. Super great that OP was able to recognize and commit to her own happiness.

I mean we all fail, again and again, but that doesn't mean most of us don't want to be "basically good", or are incapable of being "basically good" at each moment.


How about I split the difference?

"All people have good in them." OK. I can accept that as a true statement.

"The source of racism, anger, war ... is people." Also true. One might even say "All people have bad/evil in them."

"Basically good"? I can't go that far. I mean, do you watch the news much? There's a fair number of "not basically good" people.

Worse: I am not immune to being one of the "not basically good" people.


The news generally only reports about bad people. The stuff good people do isn't interesting.


I would like to believe that everyone is basically good and its society that causes so many people to end up being... well not so good.

But that is just what i would like to believe and not necessarily reality.




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