There is Only ONE Thing Separating You and Me

Five years ago I was an arrogant son of a bitch. (Sorry for the expression Mom, you’re not a bitch.)

But I was.

I was 31, and making well over six-figures. I was training surgeons in the operating room, selling major surgical equipment, managing a couple of million in sales, traveling, and making a “name” for myself in a big company. I was the #5 sales person in a global company! I was fit, fabulous and financially well. The world was my Ann-Taylor-clad-oyster!

These are the things I believed: “Stop complaining, making excuses, and being a victim. Get off your butt and go after what you want. No, just means not yet, never give up… you’re the only one who will make or break your success so you better get out there and work harder than the next person… nothing compares to hard work and dedication…. there is no such thing as luck… you make you’re own luck. "Luck = opportunity + preparation” <— stole that one from Oprah.

Back then, I believed with all my heart and soul that if I worked hard, I could be/do/have anything. Anything. I was raised by two liberal educators in the 90s. You can be anything you want! Work hard and the sky’s the limit! Those were their battle cries in my adolescence and I believed them.

Back then, I never gave money to strangers. They would just spend it on booze, or drugs, or something else that had nothing to do with helping themselves off the street. Why couldn’t they just get a job?

I saw many things in black and white. I voted Republican (mostly) because I’ve always been socially liberal; to each their own and all that stuff.

And I just kept climbing. I began my steady ascent up the corporate ladder from a small desk in the Midwest and an income that qualified me for low-income housing. Over ten years I made it all the way up to a nice house in an expensive neighborhood on the West coast, with twice-annual trips to exotic locales, family in tow. I made it. I was a “leader” in the company of high-end sales professionals with a happy home life to boot. This was success, and I made it happen.

Then, amidst all the adoration and atta-girls, I climbed a little too high. I overstepped bounds I didn’t know existed. I climbed up over a ledge where I shouldn’t have been and certainly wasn’t invited. When I peeked over I saw all the frightened people huddled in corners smoking cigarettes asking each other questions no one knew the answer to. They seemed confused to be there, and didn’t really know what to say except a rehearsed company line. They were alone and scared, and they didn’t want you looking at them. Go away, go away! They wanted OTHER people climbing up that ladder. Other people who looked more like them. Who believed more like them. Who wouldn’t notice their abject failure and ask silly questions like, “why?”

My staring and questions exacerbated their anger and anxiety. No, no, they didn’t want ME, this 32-year-old, smart-as-a-wip woman peering at them and questioning their decisions; decisions that made no sense to our agreed upon goals.

Numerous times they told me to go away. But I couldn’t. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz I’d already peeked behind the curtain and saw the puny wizard pretending to be a God, and when the puny wizard gets seen, the wizard gets angry.

They came after me. Chased me down the ladder and then dumped hot, boiling water over my head just to make sure I never climbed up again.

But I did. Because they don’t know me. My Mom instilled some crazy Injustice Gene in me and I can’t STOP myself when see so much wrong. I act on autopilot in a leer jet fueled by indignation when I witness tyrants imposing their will. I climbed back up, spied on them a little, and then went and told the company police, aka Human Resources. Turns out HR is more like a Gestapo, than peacemakers. HR shoved me back down the ladder and poured more boiling water over my head.

In doing so, they melted away my childish, idealistic naiveté. This was my initiation into the world of discrimination. This was the moment I finally understood what people meant when they used the word “oppression.” I finally understood that not everything was a matter of hard work and dedication, sometimes, you are pushed down just because you’re different, rather than unqualified.

I will admit, embarrassingly, that back then, I didn’t quite understand the fervor behind African-Americans who were still so, so, so upset about discrimination. Don’t we have a black President? Didn’t we have a black Secretary of State AND she was a woman? How can we still be living in a world filled with such blatant racism when there is so much opportunity? Five years ago, in my infinite ignorance, I couldn’t even imagine having a disadvantage based on anything except my abilities to work hard and out-perform my peers.

So when I smacked up against sexual discrimination at 32, I was a little shell-shocked to say the least. In my re-education of discrimination and oppression, I ran across a cartoon from the New Yorker which changed my perspective forever. Not unlike what the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo are doing today:

I went from living on the top rungs of the ladder, swimming in the big pond where the world was just and made sense in black and white, down to the bottom of a dark, murky cesspool, where there was no justice to be found. In an instant, I was able to see where my thinking faltered all those years ago.

Hard work is important. Dedication is an awesome virtue. Resilience is probably the single most important characteristic determining future success. But it’s not so black and white. Victimization, discrimination and oppression are still very real in our world, and it’s the responsibility of us ALL to take off the blinders and do something about it. Those fortunate enough to sit atop the highest rungs of society as captains of industry, proclaiming that the world is just… are simply… wrong. Because, they shouldn’t, for a fraction of a second, think that all of it couldn’t disappear tomorrow.

Yes, you worked hard. Yes, you created your opportunities and excelled beyond your peers. Yes, you fully deserve your position. But so do a thousand others. And you’re sitting there NOT because of your singular specialness, but because of good fortune and grace. It would behoove anyone in a position of power to remember: there but for the Grace of God Go I, because it is the ONLY thing separating the big fish from the little, the top rung leaders, from the ones holding the ladder steady at the bottom.

Which brings me to Martin Luther King Jr: After a year-long litigious battle with my former company, King’s life and this holiday have taken on deeper meaning. He is one of the world’s most effective and honored activists against injustice and oppression. I have studied this man, and his messages, and I believe Martin Luther King Jr. was a middle fish. Because what I’ve learned, is that it’s from this middle, gray, semi-opaque area where you gain empathy, wisdom, foresight and compassion for all the other fish along side you on this apparatus no fish should be on anyway… life’s ladder.

Because Martin Luther King knew about the light; in the middle, where you can still see it. It is only toward the light, that you swim.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
He knew that there is *no*justice without faith and hope for a better tomorrow. That, against all odds, we must, must, must believe. And after what I’ve been through, I do.

My favorite quote from MLK – one I have recited like a prayer during some of the most difficult moments of my life – one that provides much hope to those of us unjustly accused:

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

Indeed it does, Mr. King, indeed it does.

Shannon Lell is the editor of Mamapedia. When she’s not working or mothering, she writes introspective essays on her blog because over-thinking is her special talent. Also, sarcasm. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter.