Summary: <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> The past three weeks have been an almost non-stop parade of protests, all centered around the most recent tragic deaths that didn’t have to happen. <br> <br> <br> <br> “Yes, that’s terrible. But what can I do?” you might ask. After all, you already changed your Facebook profile for BlackOut Day. And you even attended a Black Lives Matter march. So, you’re good right? <br> <br> <br> <br> No, not really. <br> <br> <br> <br> Those things only signal that you’re on the side of making<br> things better. But only on the side. As<br> in, the sideline. If you actually want to make a difference, you need to get<br> off the bench and into the game and that’s a lot harder than changing your<br> profile picture. And it probably means getting knocked around a little. I don’t<br> mean literally. This isn’t a call to violence. And I’m not suggesting you<br> intervene in an active arrest or break the law in an act of civil disobedience<br> (although both of those have their place, too). <br> <br> <br> <br> Here I’m talking<br> about the kind of thing you can do on a daily basis by just calling out bad<br> behavior when you see it — in your family, friends, and neighbors. And that<br> takes courage. It might mean temporarily straining relationships with people<br> you care about. In the worst situations, you might even lose a friend over it.<br> But in most cases, you’ll end up earning new respect, from others, and for<br> yourself.<br> <br> <br> <br> Instead of “civil” disobedience, let’s call<br> it “social” disobedience. Because in this case, you’re rubbing<br> up against generally accepted rules of social behavior, like “If you don’t<br> have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” or going along with<br> what everyone else is doing even if you don’t agree with it. Or, more<br> generally, the aversion many of us have to disagree with or offer even the<br> gentlest of criticism to people we know for fear of damaging the relationship. <br> <br> <br> <br> We need to get over<br> that. True friends will appreciate you being honest and direct with them<br> anyway. <br> <br> <br> <br> So, here’s an<br> example of what that looks like in the context of racial bigotry. But social<br> disobedience can be used for any worthwhile social change that you support and<br> from any side of the political spectrum. If it’s important to you, let the<br> people closest to you know — especially when they themselves are the problem. <br> <br> <br> <br> Basketball with Torlick<br> <br> <br> <br> When Ed was a five-<br> or six-year-old boy growing up in Colorado, he noticed that his was the only<br> house in the neighborhood painted red. All the other houses were either brown<br> or green. When he asked his dad why, his father said very matter of factly, “Because<br> when we moved in, the Homeowners Association told us we could only paint it<br> brown or green. So, naturally, I painted it red.”<br> <br> <br> <br> Apparently, Mr.<br> Tanguay wasn’t much of a rule follower, at least not with rules he considers<br> unworthy. So you shouldn’t be too surprised at how he responded on another<br> occasion when he received a more unsettling directive from the HOA. <br> <br> <br> <br> When Ed’s older<br> brother Mark was fourteen, he visited their aunt and uncle, who were on<br> assignment in the Peace Corps in the Marshall Islands, very close to the<br> equator in the western Pacific Ocean. Just prior to returning home, he called<br> his parents to ask if he could bring home a guest for a while. He’d befriended<br> a local boy named Torlick who’d never been to the United States.
