The Third Option

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Here’s a video Right vs. Wrong: How To Stop Polarizing

Here’s my comment on it:

Neat parlor trick. Maybe the third option is recognizing that to sit on the fence and take a “some very fine people on both sides” approach disguised as compassion and compromise comes from a place of ultimate privilege.

Yes, life is complex. Yes there are grey areas. But some things really are binary.

Imagine asking Rosa Parks about the third option. Imagine asking Abraham Lincoln about the third option. Ask the kid getting the reduced price lunch about the third option. What you have had them do instead of what they did? It’s easy for you to observe and make pie charts because you’re not in it.

I get your intention, I really do. I appreciate the sentiment. I believe you’re sincere in wanting to heal fractures. And at some point when we reach a place of healing the third option becomes a critically important part of that. But we’re not healing yet. We’re still hurting. We’re still fighting, some of us for the literal right to exist as ourselves without fear.

If you look around, you’ll notice that ⅓ of the country would have ⅓ of the country killed while ⅓ of the country is too busy looking for and contemplating the third option to put a stop to it.

Sometimes taking a stand needs to be the first option. Sometimes it needs to be the only option.