Stop the Whining!

By Rhonda Kanet Chambless

I want to scream at the top of my lungs: STOP THE WHINING!

Why? Because the endless cries of victimhood, the relentless assigning of blame, and the insistence that we define ourselves by the injustices of the past have become senseless, divisive, and downright irresponsible.

I am making my way toward 75 years of age, and throughout my lifetime I have listened to the repetitious cries of people of every color, gender, and background who seem determined to wear the mantle of oppression. Well, guess what? Human beings have been oppressing other human beings since the beginning of recorded history. Every race. Every culture. Every civilization. Men and women alike. And every one of us, at some point in our lives, has been mistreated, disregarded, underestimated, or treated unfairly by another human being. That is not an excuse for injustice. It is a recognition of the imperfect nature of humanity.

Today, we hear that white people are oppressors. That entire groups of people should somehow bear responsibility for the sins of those who came before them. Really? If we took the time to study the whole of human history, rather than conveniently selecting the chapters that support our grievances, we would discover something remarkable. No race has a monopoly on oppression. And no race has a monopoly on suffering.

Consider the history of the American Indian, now commonly referred to as Native or Indigenous Americans. Long before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, the Americas were inhabited by countless societies with their own languages, cultures, governments, and territorial boundaries. The earliest ancestors of Indigenous Americans migrated from Asia thousands of years ago, primarily through the region known as Beringia, with migration and settlement occurring over many generations.

Over the centuries, Indigenous civilizations flourished. Some lived peacefully alongside their neighbors. Others fought wars, conquered territories, displaced rival peoples, and practiced forms of captivity and enslavement. Archaeological evidence confirms that warfare, violent territorial struggles, massacres, and even scalping existed in parts of North America long before Europeans arrived.

Does that mean the lands occupied by Indigenous peoples were not rightfully theirs? Of course not. Generations of occupation, established communities, and cultural traditions created legitimate territorial claims. But it does mean that conquest and brutality did not arrive in the Americas aboard European ships. They were already part of the human story. Human migration, conquest, assimilation, and territorial conflict had been occurring throughout the world for thousands of years. Why, then, do we so often judge one civilization by its worst behavior while romanticizing another as though its people were incapable of the same human failings?

The African slave trade offers another example of humanity’s capacity for cruelty. The transatlantic slave trade was a horrific institution. Millions of Africans were forcibly transported across the ocean, separated from their families, and condemned to lives of bondage. European and American slave traders, plantation owners, and governments bear enormous responsibility for that brutality. But they did not act alone. African rulers, merchants, and political elites from that continent also participated in the capture, sale, and trafficking of enslaved people. Systems of slavery existed within Africa before Europeans established the transatlantic trade.

None of this excuses the Europeans. None of it excuses the Africans who participated. None of it excuses anyone. Cruelty is not a racial characteristic. It is a human failing. And so is the willingness to exploit another person for wealth, power, or personal advantage.

Now consider women.

If any group of human beings can point to a long history of systematic subordination across cultures and civilizations, it is women. For thousands of years, women were denied opportunities, education, property rights, political representation, and personal independence. Physical differences between men and women, reinforced by social customs, religious interpretations, and laws, contributed to systems of male dominance. And this was not unique to one race or one civilization. It unfortunately still exists today in many cultures.

I once had a conversation with a Black friend who was describing the historical oppression of Black Americans by white Americans. I asked him if he knew when Black men were constitutionally given the right to vote. He did not.

I explained that the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, prohibited denying voting rights on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. But for men only. Women were excluded. Black women. White women. Women of every race and background. It would take another 50 years before the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, prohibiting the denial of voting rights on account of sex. Think about that. Women have had the constitutional right to vote for only about 100 years. That is not ancient history. That is barely more than a century.

Yet here we are, still arguing about which group has suffered the most, which group deserves the greatest sympathy, and which group should carry the greatest burden of guilt. What an exhausting and unproductive competition.

While none of these historical realities exonerates those who committed injustice, history is also filled with people who refused to participate. Europeans who befriended and defended Indigenous Americans. Americans who risked their lives fighting slavery. Men who supported women’s equality long before it became fashionable. People of every race and nationality who stood against the cruelty of their own societies. They, too, are part of our history.

Why are we so quick to assign collective guilt and so reluctant to recognize individual goodness? We all inherit a human history filled with extraordinary achievements and terrible injustices. But we do not inherit the personal guilt of our ancestors.

We inherit the responsibility to decide what kind of human beings we will become.

I remember the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s. I was a teenager, only 17 years old, and I believed wholeheartedly that women deserved equal opportunities. I knew the limitations placed upon women were unfair, outdated, and long overdue for change. But even then, I questioned some of the tactics being used.

I watched women protest, denounce men, hate men, and demand recognition. And I remember thinking that constantly beating men over the head with accusations of oppression was hardly the best way to convince them that women deserved equality. That was going to achieve nothing but resentment. And it did. I understood that. Certainly, protests and organized advocacy helped change laws and open doors, but the denouncement of male motives and actions were not going to change perspectives. It was too personal.

I believed then, and I believe now, that the most powerful demonstration of equality is achievement. Find an opportunity, and I will show you what I can do. That became my philosophy. I did not want to spend my life demanding that someone acknowledge what I could accomplish. I wanted to accomplish it. I did not want to be defined by the limitations others placed upon me. I wanted to prove those limitations wrong. And I certainly did not want to spend my life believing that someone else’s prejudice determined my future. I wanted to determine my own future. And I did.

Women advanced not only because they protested injustice, but because they entered professions, built businesses, raised families, led organizations, and demonstrated their abilities in arenas where they had once been unwelcomed or considered unable. We refused to acknowledge the limitations imposed upon us. We acted. We achieved. We changed expectations by doing. And, in doing so, we changed society.

That is the lesson I wish more people would embrace today. There is an enormous difference between recognizing that you have been treated unfairly and deciding that unfair treatment will define the rest of your life. One is an acknowledgment of reality. The other can become a prison of your own making.

Everyone does not begin life with the same opportunities. Some are born into wealth. Others into poverty. Some have loving, supportive parents. Others grow up neglected or abused. Some enjoy good health. Others face extraordinary physical or emotional challenges. Life has never been a race in which every runner begins at the same starting line.

But I have always admired the runner who starts 50 yards behind and refuses to quit and refuses to complain. The runner who pushes harder, reaches farther, and sometimes overtakes those who began with every advantage. What a magnificent victory that is. And even when that runner does not win, there is dignity in the effort. There is dignity in refusing to surrender your future to your circumstances. There is dignity in personal responsibility.

Victimization is a loser. Personal responsibility is a winner.

That does not mean injustice should be ignored. It does not mean discrimination should be tolerated or that people who suffer deserve their suffering. It means that the wrongs committed against us, or against those who came before us, should not become the sole definition of who we are. We can acknowledge the past without living in it. We can fight injustice without condemning entire races, genders, or nationalities. We can demand fairness without demanding that others inherit guilt for crimes they never committed. And we can recognize that human beings are capable of both extraordinary goodness and unimaginable cruelty, regardless of the color of their skin.

I am tired of hearing people reduced to categories. White. Black. Asian. Indigenous. Male. Female. Rich. Poor. Young. Old. In times of elections the media refers to us in categories. Windows of sameness. What about the individual?

When I look at another human being, I do not see a race, a gender, a nationality, an age, a bank account, or an educational pedigree. I see the person. What about integrity? Courage? Kindness? Honesty? Compassion? Determination? Character? Those are the qualities that matter to me.

And I hope I’m seen as an individual responsible for my own decisions, my own conduct, my own failures, and my own accomplishments. I have lived long enough to know that life is not fair. It never has been and never will be. But I also know that human beings possess an extraordinary capacity to overcome adversity, to learn, to improve, to forgive, and to build something better than what they inherited.

So I choose to place my faith in humanity. Not in perpetual grievance. Not in collective blame. Not in the endless competition to determine whose ancestors suffered the most. But in the individual human spirit.

We all have ancestors who were oppressors. We all have ancestors who were oppressed. We all have ancestors who were courageous, and others who were cowards. We cannot change who they were. But we can decide who we are.

So, please stop the whining. Stop assigning blame by race, gender, or ancestry. Stop measuring your worth by the injustices of the past. Stand up. Take responsibility. Make the most of the life you have been given. And treat your fellow human beings as individuals, not representatives of some historical grievance. History will not judge us by what happened at the hands of our ancestors. It will judge us by what WE contributed.

So, I leave you with one simple question: What kind of ancestor will YOU be?