It is black history month and it is a time to show love, respect, and honor to the African Americans who helped build the United States and still hold this country up. Yet there are more and more those in power that do not want to share, learn, and give credit to those who mean so much to our country’s wealth and culture. We have somehow convinced ourselves that we can avoid the pain of the truth in a way that demonstrates love to our children.

For generations we have developed an ignorance about the truth of our history, our decisions, and the results. For generations adults have told children in not so may words that the children are not capable of learning from the truth. Telling the truth is one of the key elements of life and love. If all of us understood the truth about science, history, the universal laws of spirit and energy, sociology, psychology and how connected we are to each other and the planet, we would be more capable of showing love, being creative, and improving the quality of life.

If we are not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, then we are teaching by deceiving, which demonstrates that we do not love. We do not care about the quality of life. Ignoring the horrific actions of our past does not make folks with less melanin in our skin better. Those of us who are willing to grapple with the past and learn the truth know that we are better off for having done so.

Sure, we go through feelings of frustration, sorrow, guilt and shame, anger, and a desire to be responsible. If we choose not to allow ourselves to get stuck in these feelings and, instead, choose to allow them to pass through and even motivate us, we gain a greater sense of self. With this understanding, we can be a part of the healing process and learn how to show love to our future generations. We can learn to create peace in our world. If we learn to approach different ethnicities with curiosity, we gain so much more from the experience. Our skin is only a thin layer deep and the remaining layers of our body, mind and spirit are similar to each other. We can learn from and celebrate our differences.

Let’s stop the generational defiance that has become engrained in our culture because, as children, we come in seeking and seeing truth. As we are taught lies, and not cared for by the past generations because they too did not learn the truth, we develop the same resistance as those past generations had with their parents. There is too much resentment built into our culture. We can change that by teaching the truth in a way that allows us all to heal the harm of the past, appreciate others now, and improve the quality of life moving forward.