We’re living in a time where “being okay“ is treated like a moral accomplishment – and where asking for more, for better, is treated like a threat. The hardest part of tying to help people help themselves is realizing how many have forgotten, or never even been shown, what decency actually looks like.

For some, that loss is recent. For others, like Black Americans, decency was never even offered to begin with. Black people in this country have lived generation after generation being told they are “not quite“ American. Asked to fight wars abroad for freedoms we never had at home. Told to show patience, grace, and loyalty to systems that couldn’t even call them by their full name: American. No hyphens. No qualifiers. Just American.

And after centuries of struggle, what’s the reward? Lip service. Visibility without power. Recognition without justice. And worse, an environment where many are encouraged to cheer for political and corporate leaders who recycle the same promises every election cycle while delivering the same disappointments behind closed doors.

Let’s talk about complicity – real, modern complicity. It’s the blue-check pundit celebrating a new diversity hire at a defense contractor responsible for war crimes. it’s the everyday voter who says, “Well, at least they’re better than the other guy,“ while ignoring that both parties prop up systems that poison water, cage children, and let billionaires buy legislation.

It’s people who shop at companies they know underpay workers and destroy the environment, but justify it with convenience and free shipping. It’s the silence when a Black person is killed by police, but the outrage when property gets damaged in protest. It’s calling for “civility” while turning a blind eye to injustice – because it hasn’t landed at your door yet.

We defend these systems because we’ve been taught to accept survival as success. If you just play the game right, if you clap on cue, vote on schedule, and never ask hard questions – you’ll be okay. But “being okay“ isn’t enough. Being okay while the powerful loot communities poison the planet and legislate morality for profit isn’t decency. It’s denial.

It’s heartbreaking trying to convince people they deserve more when they’ve been trained to expect less. To settle. To call injustice a “gray area.” To treat corruption like it’s just a personality quirk of leadership. And to dismiss anyone who demands integrity as too idealistic or “divisive.“

But decency isn’t idealism – it’s the minimum. If we can’t even agree on that, then what are we even fighting for?

Reclaiming decency means reckoning with who has never had access to it. It means acknowledging that Black Americans – and many other marginalized people – aren’t just survivors of historic injustice but are living in its aftermath every single day. And we’re still being told to smile and “be patient,“ still expected to be the moral compass of a country that refuses to look in the mirror. (Decency and privileges that many receive simply for waking up with the ability to obtain a sunburn)

If we can’t say plainly that some people were never given the basics – dignity, justice, humanity – then we’re not serious about progress or change. We’re just polishing the status quo and playing dress–up with activism.

Helping people reclaim their worth, their voice, and their power isn’t easy. It takes more than slogans. It takes truth. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially then.

Because the goal isn’t comfort – it’s decency. And without that, everything else is just performance.

What will we become?

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