By PATRICK HARDEMAN – In and Out of Darkness

There should be an official way to measure ignorance. We have thermometers for fevers, speedometers for cars, and blood pressure cuffs for stress. Why not an Ignorance Meter?

Some days, I’d swear the needle would snap clean off.

Here’s the irony that never stops amazing me. The more racist a person seems to be, the more afraid they often appear to be of Black people.

Think about that for a second.

These same fearless adventurers will willingly pay thousands of dollars to swim with sharks. They’ll jump out of perfectly good airplanes because someone promised them a parachute usually works. They’ll climb mountains just to take a selfie one gust of wind away from becoming tomorrow’s evening news.

They’ll keep snakes whose bite comes with a complimentary trip to the emergency room. They’ll own spiders that look like they pay rent. They’ll crawl into caves so dark that even their GPS starts praying.

Some people will chase tornadoes for fun.

Eat steak still negotiating the terms of its own survival.

Sleep overnight in “haunted” houses because apparently paying money to be emotionally traumatized is now entertainment.

Then they’ll rebuild the exact same house in the exact same flood zone after Mother Nature has already sent three eviction notices. If common sense had a GoFundMe page, it’d be fully funded by now.

But somewhere along the way, they see an innocent Black man, woman, or child…

…and suddenly that’s where the danger is?

A five-year-old.

An eight-year-old.

A twelve-year-old.

An eighteen-year-old.

A twenty-two-year-old.

A thirty-five-year-old.

A seventy-five-year-old grandfather.

The supposed threat isn’t based on behavior. It’s based on imagination.

That isn’t awareness.

That’s programming.

Fear has an incredible ability to ignore evidence. It doesn’t ask, “What has this person done?” It asks, “What story have I been told about this person?”

That’s how prejudice survives. Not on facts, but on recycled fiction.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: ignorance is expensive.

It cost opportunities.

It cost friendships.

It costs communities.

It costs trust.

Sometimes…

It cost lives.

And what’s tragic is that racism doesn’t only imprison the person being judged. It also imprisons the one doing the judging. Imagine living your entire life believing danger is hiding inside every unfamiliar face while ignoring the corruption wearing tailored suits, expensive watches, polished smiles, impressive job titles; or even the face of a mother, father, grandmother or grandfather.

History has shown us repeatedly that some of humanity’s greatest monsters didn’t look like monsters at all.

Character has never worn a skin color.

Neither has evil.

America doesn’t need more fear. It needs more curiosity.

Talk to people before you judge them.

Learn before you label.

Question the stories you’ve inherited.

Because if you’ll hug a tiger cub, pet an alligator, chase a tornado, and leap from an airplane; but you’re terrified of someone because of the color of their skin…

…your problem was never courage.

It was never safety.

Your Ignorance Meter has simply been giving you inaccurate readings all along.

I’ll leave you with this:

If your greatest fear in life is someone else’s skin color, perhaps the danger was never standing in front of you.

Perhaps it’s been living inside your own mind all along.

Have a safe weekend. Be curious. Ask better questions. Pre-judge less. Learn more.

Because the strongest minds aren’t the ones that know everything.

They’re the ones willing to admit when they’ve been wrong.

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