It’s Not Okay :)

This is a blog post I’ve wanted to write for a while. It keeps popping up in many areas of my life.

 

Let’s rewind several weeks—I’m in the gym at “work” (my volunteer site, Mission Centers of Houston). It’s a typical weekday afternoon, and the 10-15 year olds who attend Preteen Club after school are scattered about the gym. Some line the walls; we are ‘out’. Some are still in the game: an intense round of dodgeball that is closely watched and monitored by all. 

 

Dodgeball gets very intense at Fletcher Mission Center. This leads to a set of specialized rules that you wouldn’t expect to need in dodgeball. Yet here we are, with a set of rules we’ve developed for the multitude of disputes that inevitably arise in each game. These rules answer questions like “Who is out if the ball hits me, bounces off, but one of my teammates catches it?” or “Is it a head shot if the victim ducked into the ball on purpose? Does it count if a girl’s ponytail gets hit?” or “What if I guard my face with my hands, but the ball is thrown so hard I get smacked in the face anyway?” 

 

So in this story, I’m standing on the wall with one of my favorite preteens. Yes, I have favorites. No, I’m not sorry. So my homegirl Cristal and I are standing together, carefully watching the game (like everyone else) so we can help settle disputes. On the other side, an adult male is still playing. One of his teammates gets hit in a complicated scenario that allows for arguing about whether the kid is actually out or not. And the adult male does argue, loudly and persistently, until his player is allowed to remain in the game. Cristal turns to me and calmly but with disappointment says, “that same thing happens to me all the time, but no one ever argues that I should still be in!” This inequality in the calls in dodgeball—calls that clearly favor the older, the stronger, the boys—is a frustration that is very close to my heart. Wanting to compensate for my often-oversensitive nature, I responded with something like, “Yeah… It sucks because they always argue for the boys who are good, and they don’t really care about the rules if it applies to someone they don’t think it good. It really stinks, but it’s okay.” 

 

And Cristal says, cool and and nonchalant, “No… It’s not.” 

 

I can’t tell you how significant those words were to me. It’s like as a child I learned the simple addition fact that 1 + 1 = 2. Imagine that one day, someone decided they could benefit from making this fact disappear. So they start a rumor among the powerful that 1 + 1 = 3, and this rumor makes its way around, and soon everyone is just repeating it. And I’m repeating it, though it feels wrong, because I don’t want to be criticized by those in power. And then one day a child says to me, “No… It’s not.”

 

Of course it’s not. Let’s all say it together… IT’S NOT OKAY. Lies are not okay. Injustice is not okay. Abuse of power is not okay. Taking advantage of the weak for the benefit of the strong is not okay. Let it sink in for a moment. It’s a fact that I forgot because I was tired of hearing

 

You’re oversensitive

 

You’re just being emotional. 

 

Girls are crazy.

 

She must be on her period. 

 

There are a million ways the world can wear down your willingness to admit it’s not okay. 

 

To be honest, it’s frustrating to know it’s not okay sometimes. We say it’s okay when there’s nothing we can do about it in that moment. For many scenarios of injustice, there may be nothing we can accomplish in our lifetime to help the problem. So over time, there’s nothing I can do about it turns into it’s okay.  

 

I am here to shout from the rooftops that it is not okay. It is not okay for the culture at my volunteer site to subtly teach young girls that they are less important than young boys. It is not okay for my friends to ignore me while I’m in Houston because it’s inconvenient or challenging to keep in contact. It is not okay for the world to be the way it is, where so many go hungry and so many suffer from overeating. I can’t change the world. Let’s just be honest: I can spend my whole life in protest to injustice and never really change anything. But that is NOT the same as the world being okay. 

 

Please, be brave today and acknowledge the areas in your life where you are frustrated and essentially powerless. Then calmly reassure yourself that it’s not okay. We can’t let our pride—our frustration with feeling powerless—transform the truth (the world is broken and unfair and I am a small, weak being with little to no control over the broken world’s fate) into an apathetic and numbing statement (it’s okay). Recognizing that something isn’t okay often does not change the world, but it does help us to retain our humanity. It does remind us that we are in need. And oh how we are in need! We are weak and in need of the Strong. We are broken and in need of the Healer. We are selfish and in need of the Selfless. We are a people deeply in need. We lose sight of that fact when we convince ourselves that everything is okay. 

 

I know no one has malicious intentions when they say that phrase, but I think it takes more courage to say it’s broken and I’m powerless than it’s okay. Please, let’s listen to my dear little Cristal and remind ourselves of the truth.