Even in turbulent times, we must be engaged

When people tell me that their New Year's Resolution is to stray away from political conversations, I shudder. The ability to have a dialogue with someone despite our divisive climate is a skill to strive for - and it scares me when people refuse to engage. Taking a stance of neutrality equates to siding with an oppressor.

When people stay silent to achieve the absence of tension, even while minorities are being systematically separated from their families, while disabled people are being silently stripped of governmental support, they are choosing to watch injustice occur. Although people see these injustices and feel horrified at the reality of the situation, they don't speak up. It is human nature to strive for comfortability. But, at what cost?

If you stay silent in today's political climate, ask yourself this: Would you have chosen to stay silent during the Jim Crow era? In Martin Luther King's "A Letter From A Birmingham Jail,' he wrote, "Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill-will." Over half a century later, the same behavior that King described is still present in our society.

Oppressors rely on bystanders. In Nazi Germany, they relied on the fact that everyone turned a blind eye to their disappearing Jewish neighbors. Today, China is relying on the fact that we are turning a blind eye on the disappearing Uighur Muslims. The parallels are astounding.

If your New Year's Resolution is to stay out of politics, please look at yourself in the mirror long and hard. Are you the type of person who wants to remain silent as long as you can comfortably avoid discourse, or are you the type of person who will step into uncomfortability in order to stand on the side of justice and liberty?

Carolynne Burk

Mundelein