Blind Luck

Today, I read this article on human trafficking in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, reminding me that there are a lot of things we Americans, myself included, don't like to think or talk about.

Sometimes it's easier to be blind.

Yesterday, I went grocery shopping, and as I waited to cross a line of traffic in the parking lot, I saw a near-collision between a couple heading into the store and a long line of carts a store employee was returning to the building.

The couple reacted angrily, spinning around to glare at the employee, and one yelled loud enough for all passersby to hear, "Why don't you just go back to India where you belong?"

I was not the only bystander who was taken aback. In the first place, the employee did not appear to be Indian. The accusation was full of layers: you are not like us. you do not belong here. we don't want you here. It had very little to do with the accidental collision of several carts in a crowded space.

Perhaps the speaker had recently lost a job and was looking for someone to blame. Maybe. I don't know. It wouldn't excuse their behavior, but it made me stop and think. Whatever caused that anger and aggression caused the shopper to disregard the employee as an individual with a complex story of her own.

Sometimes it's easier to be blind.

But then some unrelated incident, like a crowded parking lot or rush hour traffic or a willful child or an imperfect friendship forces the anger to the surface and causes the ugliness of our thoughts to be displayed before our own eyes.

It's easier to get upset about social injustice or the injustice others display than it is to recognize the angry thoughts I am careful to suppress or the damaging words I rehearse but tell myself I'll never use.

All of these are ugly. All are evidence of brokenness. All, I think rightly, provoke a sense of anger and indignation and a desire for change.

The problem comes when I imagine that it's possible to repair the external manifestations without dealing with the internal causes.

Sometimes it's easier to be blind.