Monday, May 14, 2012

Tolerance vs. Acceptance

"I don't want to just be tolerated, I want to be accepted."

There is a program put on by ABC called "What Would You Do?" People act out scenarios to see if they can catch people's attention and how those people will respond. They act out scenes ranging from someone having toilet paper stuck to their shoe to an American telling a Muslim (American) that she can't shop at his store to black guys vs white guys vandalizing a car. People may think they are non-prejudice or have American pride, but everyone carries that out differently. Having toilet paper stuck to your shoe, something in your teeth or dropping money on the ground may seem small, but the question still is, "What if that happened to you? Would you want someone to help you?"

But then the deeper issues come, with serious self-reflection. If you were at a bakery and the cashier told a Muslim girl wearing a hijab that he was not going to serve her kind, what would you say? Would you say anything? Would you offer to buy for her what she was requesting? Would you walk out of the store refusing to do business there? Would you tell the cashier your opinion of the situation? Does your conviction of 'this is wrong' push you to do something?

If you saw white male teenagers vandalizing a car in broad daylight, how would you respond? If these teenagers were black, would your response be different? Would you walk past and ignore? Call the police? Or engage them?

I mainly watched the examples about race and religion. But there was one on drag queens that caught my attention. A waiter refuses to serve these two drag queens in this small diner. Most people don't say anything, but some do. Some keep it to themselves, some wait till the two are kicked out of the diner, some interrupt the confrontation, even a 10 year old girl gives a statement. During all the videos, I was thinking, "What would I do, and why?" Before I came to a conclusion on this scenario, one of the drag queens said that some people tolerate them but, "I don't want to just be tolerated, I want to be accepted." That brought, 'what would I do?' to a different level. Would my action show that I accepted them or that I just tolerated them. People's lifestyles and preferences are different from mine. I may not have to agree with their preferences and incorporate them in to my lifestyle, but I need to do more than just tolerate the people, I need to accept them. That is what not being prejudice really is. Do my words and actions show that I Accept everyone for who they are, or am I prejudice.

This can even be taken one step further. What Would Jesus Do? We already know. People may not like people who are not their kind. Well, we are the furthest from God's kind. Yes, we were made in His image, but we have tainted it so badly. Our sinful nature has put such a degree of separation between us and God. But yet He still forgives us. He still listens to us. He still helps us. He still calls us His child. He still wants to live in us. If Christ, as God, can come down to earth and call us His brother and consider us His equal, why can't we consider each other our equals, and show it in our words and actions.

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