For years I’ve avoided reading newspapers or watching the news, but I still manage to learn about major events. Sometimes when I hear a bit of news, I even go looking for more information. And certainly the Internet, odd notes on Yahoo, and posts on Facebook, keep me pretty well informed. Whatever that means.

In June 2015, when nine people were shot during a church service in Charleston, SC, all I could think about was confronting my white brothers and sisters, or maybe confronting us all, about privilege, humanity, and self-worth. The result was my post My Turn. If you haven’t read it, I’m told it’s worth reading. If you already have, it might be worth rereading.

I reread it recently because for the past two weeks, the world seems to have again been overwhelmed with violence. And I realize I don’t really have any more in-depth, challenging words to add to what I wrote a year ago. But I feel compelled to share something. Killing each other, yelling at each other, and feeling helpless and disempowered are not ways to make the world work! So, we’re back to the little things we can do. I can write. Here are a few random notes. Things to remember. Things to do.

1) Baton Rouge, LA; St. Paul, MN; Dallas, TX; Nice, France; Bagdad, Iraqi, plus multiple other places. My friend K. Jeanne Person remembers those shot in Orlando, FL, with beautiful, in-depth word sketches about one person per day. At this point I just want to list names of the United States’ most immediate tragedies—or the tragedies when this began. Baton Rouge has been hit again.
Meanwhile I find myself wondering how surprised Alton would be to find himself listed with white police….

The Names:
Alton Sterling
Philando Castile
Lorne Ahrens
Michael Krol
Michael Smith
Brent Thompson
Patrick Zamarripa

2) People who should know say we’re all one race, or al least that is what anti-racism teacher Jane Elliot is saying. The human race. Time to change the forms? I wanted to mark “other” when given the usual choices yesterday. However I guess I’m not quite confrontational enough. And yes, one can argue. Words are just words, so we are the ones who decide what race means. The dictionary includes most definitions we’ve heard.

But if one is playing with vocabulary I find myself with the word “species.” We are clearly one species.

Then I think about the species “dogs.” We know a dog when we see one, but I can’t think of a species that has so many different looking breeds. Yet most dogs recognize any other dog as, well, a dog.

In My Turn I use the words “race” and “people.” I’m not sure I would now. Do we really want to claim separation among ourselves? Brown eyes. Curly, red hair. Maybe. But separating us much more doesn’t work. Human. Yes, that classification simplifies things.

3) Regarding “Black Lives Matter.” Yes, indeed, we do all matter. But the recent steps to explain why “Black Lives Matter” doesn’t threaten us all mattering, got me thinking.

My take is that there are good analogies for us all being one body. Even if you don’t agree with that play along for a minute. I brush my teeth (flossing is one of the major things you can do for your health). I stretch because otherwise my legs and shoulders hurt. But when I fell last winter and had a minor concussion it was all about brain health (and monitoring a lovely black eye). I assume I still brushed and flossed, but what I focused on, what I remember doing, was monitoring coordination, memory, and pain. During that period, the priority was #painmatters.

In our one body analogy, or the one race one (see #2 above), our black brothers (mainly brothers) are being killed. Racism is still an insidious problem. It is hurting our safety, our economy, and our sense of self worth. It is hurting all of us. #BlackLivesMatter is a call for our collective health. So we can, if you will, get back to flossing.

4) Pokemon Go. (What, you say? Remember the title of this post is “Random Notes.”

“Oh, my god. People, kids(!), are walking down the streets on their phones.” “I am above [implied] downloading this app.” “How dare people look at my outdoor space.” Etc.

Well, you have been complaining for years that kids are looking only at their computers and not going outside. Now they’re playing, actually [gasp] walking, and you find this to be a problem?

Oh, they want to step two feet into your yard? Let’s post a social media complaint and threaten them. Heaven forbid that you interact with people playing a game. Would you call the police if a ball landed in the yard too?

The world is suspicious and impersonal and now random people are stopping you in the street (or at least this happened to me) and saying, “See, isn’t he cute?”, as they show you their screens.

Economically people (or so I’m told) are hosting events. Businesses are including PokeStops in their ads. It is a safe conversation with strangers especially given #1 and #3 above. (I spent a lot of time in a parking lot waiting for someone while engaged in this conversation.)

Younger people and adults are interacting. We want people to engage and so make the world friendlier. Get over it. Do you see how this might change the world? I guess I need to go download that app.

5) Just a reminder that there are already some “small things” you can do to change the world listed in Spirit Moxie conversations. These are critical right now:

Vote
Love your body
Be willing to be wrong 

Thoughts on the above? What would you add? Together we can change the world. Really.

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Photos by Spirit Moxie – from the top:
Clouds and sun
Flower
Sip (French Bulldog) and Gabe (Newfoundland)
T-shirt in bar
Black eye selfie
First Pokemon attempt