Regardless if you are a student, a teacher, a mentor, or a volunteer, etc., you are enough. You are part of a community that is proud of you and loves you! If anyone says or makes you feel otherwise, they are wrong! I just want you to know that.
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Mom? Izzat you?
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Sounds like my Grandmother.
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Thank you Dan!
You are enough, you are loved, and I’m proud of you!
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@Tom_Line, then it sounds like you’re very fortunate to have her in your life 
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Thanks Dan, needed this!
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Yes. If anyone on CD makes you feel badly for posting something that is either your own opinion or is true/accurate, they are wrong and you are not.
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Counterpoint - if someone corrects an opinion that’s harmful or a fact that’s not accurate it is because they care about you.
It’s a lot less effort to dismiss someone as an idiot or a bigot than it is to engage with them.
I’ve said it before I’ll say it again - I wouldn’t be who I am without some folks on this board calling me out on my toxic stuff. Was I angry when it happened? You bet. But with the benefit of hindsight, I’m better for it.
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Agreed. Your opinion cannot be wrong, but it could be toxic.
And your “facts” may not tell an accurate story for all people for a wide variety of reasons.
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Right. So the only possible response is to not post ever and hope nobody harasses you about it. Or, post and feel their indignant wrath.
That way the harassers get to use fear to do whatever they want.
Your job is to let them. Others see only the harassers posts and believe that the majority think that way. Human nature wants to confirm, and so, society gradually shifts.
If or when this happens to you, recognize it for what if is.
Uh, no.
This isn’t some great battle against some shadowy evil force. There is no grand conspiracy. No plan to use fear to do whatever.
People have different lived experiences and that is normal and in many cases good. Sometimes those lived experiences result in a person making assumptions about how things are globally when that’s not the case.
For example, growing up I never once had to fear being at an event out of concern that I would be harassed because of my gender. I thought FRC events were pretty safe places. And yet, we have had multiple threads (and far more privately shared stories) in which people have shared they weren’t. My facts aren’t wrong, they were simply incomplete. I had generalized my lived experience when I shouldn’t have.
Humans are expected to grow and learn from their experiences but I think with the advent of social media and a 24 hour news cycle we’ve built insulation to protect certain portions of the population from having to face certain harsh realities - they built communities based on shared experiences and then become distrustful of those outside with different experiences. Some of these communities are even intentionally pushed to be distrustful by using lots of rhetoric referencing a mysterious “they” causing an othering of any outside the group. But the truth is, there is no “they”. No shadowy force orchestrated by enemy du jour trying to indoctrinate people. Just people with different shared experiences hoping that maybe someday nobody else will have to live through what they have.
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I don’t know how we went from Dan’s wholesome post, to the latest wall of text, but maybe we should try and get back to the original intent here.
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The intent of this post was not to imply that we should ignore anyone that offers us constructive criticism. That would be dangerous since that’s how we learn and grow. I was also not trying to imply that we should just give everyone empty and undeserved plaudits, that is also dangerous.
My point is that everyone of us has inherent value. Everyone of us is deserving of love. Sometimes it may not feel that way, perhaps we are made to feel otherwise, but I just wanted to remind everyone that they are part of a community filled with people that care about them and recognize their inherent value.
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