Opening Our Eyes to Injustice

This is something I wrote for my class on Human Rights and Social Justice, and I was just reminded of it. I wanted to share it here as I feel like this message helped me to think about my often limited perspective.

“My family once decided to go to Block Island for the day. Once there, we realized Block Island was not the place to go with my brother who was mostly dependent on the wheelchair to get him around. We had him get out and walk upstairs to get into one store but after that, he spent the day in the library, one of the only accessible buildings there. If I had gone to Block Island with just my husband and not my brother, I may not have noticed how the environment was so unfair to my brother. I think this is probably true of many injustices. Unless we walk beside someone who is being treated unfairly, we may not even notice the curbs and stairs (literally and figuratively) that are keeping them out of places that we can so easily go.”

What are the curbs and stairs we are blind to because of our limited perspectives? Can we commit to not just engage in conversations with those who have different perspectives but to walk alongside them? To try to see the world through another person’s eyes?