029: Three Productive Things To Do When You Care Far Too Much About Something Absolutely Beyond Your Control.

It's no secret, that I am socially awkward. The commercial focus of dominant culture just doesn’t appeal to me. At all. 

And even more than that, it actually erodes my well-being.

So I made some drastic changes -- to accommodate my monkish ways -- and I work from home as an independent writer and lavish listener. (If you are under-listened to -- and who isn't?? -- you should check out my offering.)

A client recently asked me to write about the irresponsibility of Western filmmakers and media who popularize a harmful idealized myth of Gandhi.

I Decided To Write About The Root. Not A Petal.

Fifteen years ago I sat in a graduate World Religion class and, on the day we were introduced to Hinduism, I was horrified. Nothing could have prepared me for the explanation of caste. My heart broke for the VOICELESS at the very BOTTOM of this diabolical structure:

Free Will? Personal Rights? No, Not For Everyone.

How would you like to have your destiny scheduled for you? Instead of a birth certificate, imagine getting an official government designation that says you are such an impure pollutant, you yourself are "untouchable"?

Many of us in the US completely lose it over the word "nigga." And while we are in plush workshops “discovering our life purpose,” Dalits are routinely beaten, raped, set on fire, forced to drink urine and eat excrement… often for an ‘offense’ as minor as their shadow falling on a higher caste person.

And while there's all this fuss and fear over possible contamination by a shadow, or direct eye contact, Dalit vaginas must be esteemed as incredibly pure... when you consider how often higher caste men and police rape Dalit women.

Two hundred million people in India are sentenced to this predetermined, unprotected hell carried out in the name of 'ancestral callings'. Casteism is embedded in the doctrine of Hinduism, and is enforced by the government of India.

Whoa, This Problem Is Deep. What Can I Do About It?

1. If you are a non-Indian with little or no knowledge of casteism, you can get an unbiased snapshot of real events in a digestible way by setting a daily Google alert for the word “Dalit.” Don’t worry, your inbox won’t be flooded, but the stories you do see will inform you. And probably change you. Just set it for a week. That's all it'll take for you to see.
   
   
2. If you're intrepid, read Dr. Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste.
   
   
3. If you're a Dalit in India, convert. Cognitively separate yourself from ANY belief or teaching that destroys your humanity, by denying your humanity. Do not heed a master that cannot even see you. Disobey. Can the consequences be worse than your current oppression?

Crowd-Sourced Caring Made A Positive Impact

It was reported that a local village council in Uttar Prudesh had ordered two women to be raped and ridiculed, as punishment for their brother's elopement with a woman from a higher caste.

The council denied the claim, but that didn’t stop an Amnesty International petition from collecting more than 330,000 signatures… because decent people DO have an indecency threshold. And this crossed it.

The campaign was a semi-success. Awareness was raised, and India's Supreme Court did rule that the family be protected. But that was a publicized petal. The root of all this nastiness is casteism. The victims of all this nastiness are Dalits.

Even Though...

*  Even though we in the West need our own deep healing in racial and judicial relations, we are not short on love for those further away.

*  Even though we are undoubtedly burdened by real and immediate challenges in our own life, we must remember the designated least among us. And be appalled by the designation!!

*  Even though we may be shielded in comfort and illusion, it is to our gain to feel life without the shield.

Fifteen years ago, I cried hard over the images I saw in that World Religion class. Images as disturbing as ones I've seen of my own enslaved ancestors.

I protested us just "moving on," to keep pace with our curriculum. How could we move on? My emotional display seemed to annoy my more stoic classmates and professor. Why couldn't I just "accept reality?" Tell me...

...for the Dalit, what is acceptable about it?!

And now is a great time to plunge into those Three Productive Things You Can Do When You Care Far Too Much About Something Absolutely Beyond Your Control:

1. MAKE NOISE. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to remain silent." (Edmund Burke)
   
   
2. MAKE ART. "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way -- things I had no words for." (Georgia O'Keeffe)
   
   
3. MAKE PEACE. Don't try to banish all of your discomfort. Some of it is intended to keep you tender. Human.
   
   

Hey, person-with-a-heart, wHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE WAY TO MANAGE OVER-CARING?