Relative Stream of Consciousness on Acceptance

Today is April 17, 2010, if you want to get technical about it. As far as I'm concerned, though, it's Friday April 16, 2010 until the sun comes up.

Since we're considering this a Friday night, I'm a loser. At least I'm a loser according to most college students' standards. (Yep, that's a sweeping generalization, but I'm not pretending to be a journalist right now, so get over it.)

So I like to have a good time once upon a weekend night, but I'm not one of those people who needs to be wasted to feel validated. I'm not judging those who are that way or feel they have to be that way. I just hope they have the self-confidence not to judge people like me.

I have definitely judged people in the past for not living like I do. I know that's wrong. And tonight, a movie got me to re-visit a time when that idea really took hold.

Maybe it's cliche to say a movie affected me so deeply, especially since I'm tired and every little thing is completely profound. But I just watched the movie Crash, all by myself on a Friday night at college.

I feel like I may have been meant to watch this movie alone so I could really appreciate it without feeling the need to mock or make comments just because there was someone to talk to.

I can't begin to summarize all the intensely important messages in the movie, so I'll write a little bit about a real-life experience it got me thinking about.

I've done most of my growing up so far in a super-safe western suburb of Cleveland. And I'm lucky to have the kinds of privileges I do.

My dad lived in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland, which are fine towns, too.

But when I was about 15, which actually wasn't so long ago, he moved to an apartment in Shaker Heights, right on the edge of the city. To get to his place, we drove through some neighborhoods that were relative culture shock for me.

He called these cross-town commutes gratitude drives.

At first, I was shocked. And I'll even admit I was a little scared. I've come to realize though, that fear of something different than you're used to is where hate comes from. Just about every person I know who has racist tendancies has little to no experience with cultures other than their own.

By the second or third drive into Shaker Heights, the run-down convenience stores, graffitied walls and abandoned houses were just plain normal. I could finally look past what I thought at first were scary neighborhoods and think about the people living in these houses and their stories.

These were people just like me. I really had trouble finding any meaningful differences. Parents go to work. Kids to school. Friends socialize.

People in my town do the same things every day.

So why should outward appearances have anything to do with my opinion of these people?

So their houses don't look like mine. Whatever. So their skin is a different color. Not an issue.

I'm so thankful my dad drove through those neighborhoods. He intended the gratitude drives to make us think about how much we have. But looking back, I'm grateful for another reason.

Because of those drives, I'm open-minded and unpredjudiced. Or at least I make a conscious effort to be those things. No one is perfect, and I don't pretend to be.

These experiences give me the ability to forget stereotypes and see a person for who he or she really is. Thanks, Dad.