Public Health Intersection

I can’t help but jump into this discussion after the tragic events in Arizona this past weekend. While tragedies such as these deserve and receive a lot of attention, the real challenge is applying these hard learned lessons in our everyday life.

Almost everyone remembers their mom’s admonition to not “say anything bad about anyone,” and their dad’s instruction to not “throw the first punch,” but it seems that that trite but valuable guidance has been substantially eroded over the years.

Mom’s “If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all” seems to have evolved into “Don’t say anything bad about anyone…to their face…unless you can do it anonymously…unless you can get someone else to say it”.

Dad’s “Don’t throw the first punch” has changed to “Taunt them into throwing the first punch and then the fight is justified” or “Don’t throw the first punch unless they don’t see it coming”.

Let’s stop and think about how many times we rail against hate speech when it comes from someone we don’t agree with but join in the chorus when we’re on the “same side”.

Let’s think about the times we are unkind in thought, word and deed in the course of any day.

Let’s take responsibility for what we think, say and do.

We owe it to ourselves and those we care about to do so.

Mom and dad were right.