Confronting Prejudice, Teaching Tolerance
by Centria
Editor’s Note: The author of this letter was inspired to write and send this letter to the Sedona Red Rock News for publishing after hearing of negative comments spoken by two of their staff members against Aquarian Concepts Community. The Red Rock News declined to publish it.
I read with interest John Reid’s article “Something is Happening Here” from the Sedona Red Rock News on September 5, 2003. These are certainly times where any “deep current of optimism is being challenged, if not replaced, by a deep current of fear.” For the past ten years I have lived and worked in and around the Sedona area and remain disheartened by the fact of prejudice, slander, and malignment by some of its local residents towards certain “targeted groups” who are productive and valuable members of this small-town community. For these past years I have kept with the notion that if one stays positive and looks on the bright side that the maliciousness and hate will be overcome by genuine love, intelligence, and tolerance. After all, supposedly, we live in a multi-cultured and progressive “community” of open-minded citizens. And while I continue to experience these kinds of people everyday in my coming and going, I am still amazed at the fear, lack of tolerance, and malicious behavior of a growing number of small-minded Sedonaites.
When we are prejudiced, we violate three standards: reason, justice, and/or tolerance. We are unreasonable if we judge each other negatively in spite of positive evidence or use stereotypes without allowing for individual differences. We are unjust if we discriminate, misjudge, and oppress individuals or groups because of social, political, racial, economic, or cultural differences. We are intolerant if we reject or dislike people because they are different, e.g. of a different religion or different set of values. We violate all three when we have a scapegoat, i.e. an innocent person we blame for something he/she didn’t do.
The family members of Global Community Communications Alliance and all of the programs associated with this organization (including Spirit Steps Tours, Future Studios, Global Change Music, Avalon Gardens, and the former Planetary Family Exchange store), and more specifically and directly its founders, Gabriel of Sedona and Níann Emerson Chase, have all been on the receiving end of just such an attitude. Even before the airing of an NBC Dateline sensational “exposé” we have had to contend with outright lies, unfound fears, jealousy, resentment, and prejudices. Very recently even two staff members of a local news publication, the Red Rock News, have expressed to members of our community and even to people on the streets of Sedona their fear of us and cautioned those individuals to “watch out for us.” One staff member, when I called her to discuss her comments, admitted that she had never met any of us and had based her “gossip” on something “from a long time ago.” This, of course, was her “personal not professional opinion”!
The challenge of overcoming bias, prejudice, jealousy, resentment, intolerance, hate. and cruelty and in finding peace in our moments, in our days, in our lives, in our neighborhoods, in our communities, in our states, in our countries, and in our world begins within ourselves and our own perceptions, values, mindsets, and ideas and the desire and ability within each of us to look at our own flaws and imperfections in the attempt to be, in that moment, greater than we were in the moment before. “The quest of discovering what is happening here and doing something about it” is a personal responsibility and accountability before our Maker, our fellows, and ourselves. Until, within our own small realms of influence, we are able to have a greater love for others and exemplify behaviors of understanding and forgiveness in our daily lives, there will be no peace nor hope for a better tomorrow. What is your holding capacity for understanding someone else’s views and beliefs, and when do you exercise your right to forgive?
The Eldership of Global Community Communications Alliance would like to invite you to meet with us personally to answer any questions you might have. It is our sincere desire to correct any erroneous thoughts/concerns, through the channels of open communication, in the spirit of peace and love.
Centria Lilly is an Elder of Aquarian Concepts Community Church