Dear Kiantha: Taking away the rights of the vulnerable should induce anxiety for all

Dear Kiantha,

It is starting to feel like we live back in the early 1900s. With the recent rulings of the Supreme Court, I feel worried that extreme things like women’s rights to work or have credit without a husband may be coming back around. I know that my anxiety is out of control on these issues, but what is there to stop these things from happening? In my opinion, our country is going in the wrong direction.

Dear Friend,

In truth, you have every right to be worried, because I certainly am. I worry that the world in which I imagined for my myself, my children and their children will look nothing like the dream that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of but instead a nightmare that we cannot awaken from.

While the recent series of rulings from the SCOTUS have millions of Americans living from a place of fear, we must remember that not all Americans feel negatively affected by these rulings, and for me, therein lies the deeper issue. The fact that we live in a world where decisions that cause suffering for so many can still be sanctioned indicates that none of our safety is secure.

Our depth of disconnect from the suffering of our fellow humankind and the impact our decisions have on the least of us is disheartening and weakens the shared strength of our nation.

We seemed to have turned a blind eye to the injustices that have long caused us to need high court rulings around issues such as discriminations, affirmative action and the like.

We seem to be slowly unraveling the thread of protections that were in place to make America a land of liberty for all who call her home.

We are going in the wrong direction, and your anxiety is warranted. While my personal wish is for our entire country to be well, I shudder to think what it would mean if there were not legions of others like you and I who are not comfortable with the direction we are leaning.

This is not about leaning right or left, as it too complicated to be deduced down to liberal or conservative beliefs. Our country has to decide whether it will lean inward toward one another or outward toward a world of toxic individualism and disproportionate power.

As we stand in this pivotal moment in time, let us all remember that when we take away the rights of some, we make vulnerable the rights of all and that alone should make us all anxious.

Soul to Soul,

Kiantha