Sunday Night With John: You Can't Handle the Truth!

You Can’t Handle The Truth

John Paul Derryberry

Col. Jessup: "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!"

Every human being, who has seen the movie, A Few Good Men, has given their best interpretation of this line at some point in their life. It's iconic and it's memorable because there is truth behind it. Most of us can't handle the reality of our life situation some of the time or how we conducted ourselves or handled it.  We can't stay entirely accurate as to who we tell the world we are, who we ultimately aspire to be.  We often tell lies to others and to ourselves about the person we really are. We become the world's finest contortion artists when faced with actions that confuse our moral compass.

I'm no different, and recently I had to grapple with actions and thoughts that I knew the answers to, only to find out I was still in the contortion battle. These grappling sessions either result in growth for us or harden wrongful thoughts into dangerous beliefs. We convince ourselves that beliefs based on lies always have drastically adverse outcomes on those who are involved. 

The reasons we can't handle the truth is because it often reveals that we are not the hero in our story but the villain. I have revealed in past blogs that I had used derogatory terms toward the LGBTQ community in my youth. In protecting my masculinity, I have referred to sexually-empowered women in not-so-favorable terms. I have nodded my head in agreement when human resource personnel have used the term "cultural bias" when discussing matters of race, instead of standing firm as an ally of those beautiful groups of people and calling b.s. on the use of that term. The truth is that the word was created to protect racists from being called racists because it would hurt their feelings to find out the truth, even if their racism was born out of lack of experience.

People in power make up so many terms to soften the sting of bigotry, racism, sexism and socio-economic classism. We do it to maintain the facade of our truth, not THE TRUTH. Heck, I glow about how we need to protect the environment but continue to buy a single-use plastic item. As I examine the truth that is me, I continually see that when I admit to being wrong and acknowledge that my actions do not match my morality, I grow an inch closer to the most accurate version of myself.: my true self, the person I think myself to be with hopefully a lot less single-use plastic in my life. 

People in power -- bosses, policymakers, rich people, straight people, males, and people of western European descent -- have to realize that we have lied to ourselves about our role in holding other people back, putting up barriers to others' success, and the emotional devastation we've caused. When we are presented with that information, we must stop denying it and contorting the facts so that we are comfortable. We have to accept truth as truth.  So every day, we can move society to be more inclusive and equal, and enable  leaders from all backgrounds to have their voices represented and heard.  Then, we might finally arrive at a truth we can handle.