Hear Your Children Call

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What if kids could call out the so-called adults in this world? What if they could ask for respect among the grownups who so often make a mess of things with anger and fear, with greed and vengeance and selfishness? The Humanity Project has just posted a new video created with some of our kids from the Humanity Club program — and the video’s goal is to do just that: Kids call for a more respectful society…

You can watch the 4-minute video and hear their inspiring voices for yourself. We also hope you’ll share the video link with other adults in your life. The Humanity Project believes in the power of children to improve our world. That’s why we work so hard to teach them the values of respect for all, self-worth and equality. And to help our kids share these values with their peers. And adults.

Big thanks to Piper Spencer, a Humanity Project Board Director and co-teacher of the Humanity Club at Pembroke Pines Charter Elementary in Pembroke Pines, Florida. She helped produce the recording session alongside Humanity Project Founder & President, Bob Knotts. (Bob also wrote the music and lyrics used in the video.) We feel sure you’ll enjoy this latest post on our Humanity Project YouTube Channel. And while you’re at our channel, you may want to check out some of the other 80+ videos we have available to the public for free.

Beyond Human Color

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This is another in a series of blogs written for our website by Humanity Project Founder, Bob Knotts, a playwright, poet and author of the book “Beyond Me: Dissecting Ego To Find The Innate Love At Humanity’s Core.” These blogs offer a more personal perspective on ideas that lay at the foundation of the Humanity Project’s work.

“America, of all the Western nations, has been best placed to prove the uselessness and the obsolescence of the concept of color.”

James Baldwin, “The Fire Next Time”

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What does color mean?

Like everything engaged by the human mind, color acquires significance through our experience with it. And our experience with color begins at our earliest ages. Think about common perceptions of colors picked up by children. Even infants soon learn about sunny optimistic yellow, or dynamic and daring red. Or earthy ordinary brown. They also understand colors through a vast array of personal experiences. The approach of black forbidding storm clouds, followed by the relief of puffy welcoming white cloudshapes. Children focus their imaginations on those white clouds, this one shaped like a camel, that like a clown. Black storm clouds are never seen as suitable for youthful daydreams.

The meaning of colors also comes through stories. Cliches, of course, from cowboys in their white and black hats to shining knights on white steeds and cartoon villains with black capes and curly black moustaches. To every kid, to everyone throughout our lives, those colors mean something real. They’ve gained powerful and unshakable connotations of which we’re almost entirely unaware. Whether we know it or consciously agree, things in this world that are colored white carry positive meanings for most of us. And things colored black? Not as much. Too often our mental associations with black, and even brown, are unpleasant, frightening or hostile. Yellow and red are somewhat more complicated. Naturally, there are exceptions: Many of us believe black clothing, for instance, appears more flattering than white attire. But these exceptions prove the rule. Black clothes also are more provocative, sexier. They have become cool precisely because of their otherwise negative connotations.

Enter humanity.

The white man and black man and brown man, the yellow woman and red woman. How nice that more enlightened folks often portray our species as a pretty palette of colors, a happy rainbow of equality. Except that we’re not. As a society, we don’t view the white man and black man and brown man as equals, the yellow and red women. Far from it. We remain a divided humanity, in no small part thanks to our insistence on labeling each other by color.

And this is my point.

We need to understand the problems inherent with color-coded references to other human beings. There is no getting away from the meaning of black storm clouds and white unthreatening cloudshapes. But there is an escape from attaching such meanings to our neighbors, friends and family.

I am, by common standards, a white man. Why should anyone associate positive feelings with me more than with my Black colleagues? They shouldn’t. But they do, unavoidably.

So I’m suggesting that we explore alternatives. We do need basic descriptions of one another: If I’m sending a handyman to work on your kitchen, you’ll want to know who to expect at your door. Skin tone and so-called “racial characteristics” are important parts of our appearance. But we can describe people without the distorted connotations of color.

How might we accomplish that? Allow me to outline one simple idea offered with all humility – and in full recognition of my own social categorization by whiteness. I understand these are highly sensitive topics for many, especially many people of color, as this group is typically described today. Yet as a writer of whatever hue, I believe my job includes both pinpointing problems and proposing solutions. With this notion in mind, I make the following suggestion.

Perhaps we should use references to our regional origins, much as we do now when avoiding skin-color descriptions. But instead of the awkward “African American” and “Asian American,” “Latin American” and “Native American” we might simply refer to the Black person as “African.” We can eliminate the loaded word “Black” while providing key information about that individual. For the white woman or man, we might be identified as “European.” “Latin” and “Asian” and “Native” may suffice for the conventional brown, yellow and red peoples. That’s all the racial description that seems necessary. In the everyday world, we only require broad information about a person’s looks. You’ll recognize the recommended handyman without color coding. (If our handyman is a white person from South Africa, “European” offers the necessary physical specifics. Nationality is something else. Any confusion about regional identification is easily resolved, as we already do with “Asian.” Are we referring only to physical characteristics or to region of birth? We simply clarify with a few words: “She’s Asian, born in Peru.” The identifiers I suggest could become associated primarily with a person’s appearance.)

Humanity should eliminate color from our descriptions of individuals. It’s not necessary. And it’s demonstrably inaccurate: My skin is nothing like white. Nor is my Asian girlfriend remotely yellow nor are my African American friends actually black. Ask a talented artist. She’ll explain that skin tones require a careful mix of colors. That’s the colorful truth of our humanity – every one of us is a vibrant blend.

The simple description “African” may offer a clear concise replacement for “Black” when referring to people. Along with those other regional descriptions, African at least carries more sensible meaning than attaching color to our humanity. Colors convey relatively simplistic meanings in our minds. Human beings should not suffer from those misleading concepts.

Humanity Poems

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Poetry surely is the highest and richest form of written human expression. In poems, language carries subtle connotations and references and suggestions, expanding the meaning even as poetry offers us fresh arrangements of words that move and inspire uniquely. And so we suggest that you explore a new book, “Songs of a Certain Humanity.” All royalties for the first full year will go to the Humanity Project.

The book was written by our founder, Bob Knotts, his 27th published book. It is a collection of 40 poems, 14 song lyrics and a dozen fables that he penned over a period of 25 years. Many of those poems and all of the fables focus on topics and values that form the foundation of the Humanity Project. We think you will find the anthology uplifting and moving — and surprising in some ways. You can buy “Songs of a Certain Humanity” at any bookseller. Here is a link to purchase it on Amazon: Check out the book’s Amazon page. The cost is just $12.99 hardcover, $5.99 paperback or $2.99 e-book. And this is the book at Barnes & Noble online.

The dedication in “Songs of a Certain Humanity” makes clear Bob’s intent in writing these diverse works over such a long time: “This book is dedicated to our common humanity, the core of goodness and inherent value within every person.” That idea sits at the center of his works here and in other writings such as his book, “Beyond Me: Dissecting Ego To Find The Innate Love At Humanity’s Core .” And it’s what this organization is all about, founded nearly 17 years ago.

We hope you’ll explore the poems, lyrics and fables in “Songs of a Certain Humanity.” Your purchase will go to help the Humanity Project promote “Equality For Each, Respect For All” — and perhaps inspire you to feel a little better about yourself and the human race as well.

"Beyond Me" - Finding Love At Humanity's Core

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A Personal Blog

by Bob Knotts, Founder of the Humanity Project

This is highly unusual, to say the least. The Humanity Project does not exist to promote the work of me or any other individual. It exists to help others, especially to instill our three core values of respect for the equal value of every individual along with an appreciation of diversity and the need for self-worth. But we’re making an exception here — for a good reason. My new book deals directly with those very topics and others that relate to the Humanity Project’s work as well as my reasons for founding this nonprofit in the first place.

So we hope you may want to read my 25th and latest book: “Beyond Me: Dissecting Ego To Find The Innate Love At Humanity’s Core (A New Psychology As Philosophy).” Here’s a link to the Amazon book page offering “Beyond Me”: Visit the Amazon page for “Beyond Me.”

Let me give you a small sample of this highly unconventional and lengthy book. This is a short section from Chapter 1:

“ … Over the years I noticed that my self-doubts caused me many many many problems in the world. You will read about some of those too. Unhealthy relationships, destructive reactions, irrational judgments that bubbled up from my relentless confusions about Bob, the who and the what of me. I also observed that my problems frequently twisted themselves into problems for other people, from family to friends to colleagues to strangers. Things I said or didn’t say to them, things I did or didn’t do. My obsession with me created most of the damage that I inflicted upon both myself and my fellow human beings. The older I got, the clearer this became to me.

And over the years I noticed that you suffered precisely the same misery, whoever you were. The details didn’t matter much. As best I could surmise after travels on six continents, every other you on the planet also suffered from it. In this way you each were pretty much like me. Meaning it was all ‘me’ nearly all the time for everyone of us. The daily pursuit of immediate self-interest, the anxieties and fears and angers that emerged from our individual doubts, the desperation for outside appreciation, the harm to ourselves and others when the appreciation didn’t come. Every individual at the center of their personal universe.

Oh yes, I concluded, this is human nature. Clearly just the way we are.

Except that it isn’t.”

In a nutshell, this is the essence of “Beyond Me.” Over the course of 600 pages, the book argues that our destructive self-centered ways, our egocentrism, isn’t natural but rather learned — and can be unlearned. And untaught to our children. Instead, “Beyond Me” says, there is an innate core of love in human beings … but not the kind of love most people think about when they hear that word. The book explains in empirically based detail the what, why and how of all this. If you read it, you’ll see what I mean.

You can find another sample to read at this link, something a bit longer: Read the opening pages of “Beyond Me.”

Ultimately, “Beyond Me” is an enormously hopeful view of our humanity, offering new perspectives and new solutions to many of our problems. And much like the Humanity Project itself, the book stresses that each individual is equally valuable — and the human species is uniquely significant. By the time you read the whole book, I feel sure, you are likely to have a different, more optimistic view of yourself, others and our world.

A New Fable: The Tale Of The Two Windows

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Copyright © 2019 Robert Spencer Knotts All rights reserved

This is the 12th in a series of original modern fables for parents and other adults, created and copyrighted by Humanity Project Founder, Bob Knotts. They are short, fun, fictional tales that can be shared with older kids to teach important lessons about helping others. Each story also includes a simple moral at the end, as fables have done for centuries. You can find the other fables on our website at this link: Read the first 11 fables. Please enjoy them!

The Tale of the Two Windows

A fable by

Robert Spencer Knotts

Look!

Two windows.

In different rooms.

Both above the playground.

With children outdoors, many laughters.

Together they joyful play.

Or maybe not.

Most curious …

Look!

Oh yes, yes, oh yes yes yes yes yes. This was a scene most indeed curious to see, this was yes indeed.

Waldo had seen this curiosity indeed now for some many months or more. And each time Waldo saw, oh yes, the curiosity caught his breath up in some snort of surprisement yet again.

Two windows. Different rooms, yes, same scene below.

Or maybe not.

Hmmmmm …

You see, Waldo’s curious seeings started something like this, yes, just exactly like this those seeings began. Because Waldo woke up on one extrashiny morning as the sun in narrow lightslivers slipped between his slatted blinds, all the new day’s brightlight filtering inside among the slats to poke Waldo awake warmly on both his sleeping eyelids.

Despite this distinctly sunwarmed wakening, Waldo soon felt distinctly unsunny.

Scowling and scratching the scruffy mornstubble of his beard, he pulled a thin white cord to raise the slatted blinds of the bedroom window. Peering squinteyed through the sunwarmth, Waldo peeked down at a playground mostly unsunny to see, oh yes a playscene below quite plainly playless.

Oh no, oh yes yes indeed.

The unplaying children smiled little, smiled hardly at all. Quite listless, quite playless, five boys tossed a ball. Four girls just ran round in a small silly ring. Three kids more found some sour song to sing. Two teachers, it seemed, were both bored to tears. And one lost lonely child sat huddled by fears.

Shaking his scowl and scraping his scratch, Waldo unwelcomed the long day ahead – yes the endless workingday at a workingplace not much unlike that playground below him. All the playless hours to come in his unfun office cubicle, with Waldo himself all fullup with feelings quite listless and bored quite to tears. Unwelcome thoughts indeed as Waldo walked a few short steps down the short narrow hallway toward his short kitchen for coffee. Espresso, short.

And then, well, it happened.

Yes, this was when Waldo curiously peeked curiously through the round window in the square kitchen wall. Peeked down at that same playground he’d peeked only one short moment ago, peeked first now then peered next until both his scowl and his scratch had nearly fallen off his face.

He saw five beaming boys, so strong, playing catch. Four girls raced round in a short footrace match. Three choirkids practiced some sweet ancient song. Two teachers both cried from laughing too long. And that boy? He hunched over a big frog that he’d found, a frog hopping happily through that sunwarmed playground.

Hmmmmm …

Two windows. Different rooms, no yes, same scene below.

Or maybe not.

Same ball yes, same running path yes. Same kids, same teachers too. All, all, all, all just exactly the same through this window, then through that.

But then, no, of course the same not at all.

First unhappy below, then happy.

First joyless children, then joyful.

How could just the same all suddenly seem just so different?

Yes, even his hearings had so changed from one window to the next with one same sound sounding so sourly through this, so sweetly through that. Yes, just the same child soundings separated only by short seconds and short footsteps of floor.

Waldo sat down with his coffee, most indeed curiously confused. And he thought back on what had come to him through the two windows.

Unhappy, then happy. Joyless, then joyful.

How curious yes, Waldo wondered during some coffeesipping and then some soapshowering as he prepared for work. All all so curious, yes, it seemed all so curious indeed as Waldo somehow found himself with no scowl at all now, no scratch at all either. And then undreading the long day ahead, he soon hustled off to his workingplace through the sunwarmth outside.

And so things went on for some many months or more. First seeing this, then seeing that outside his two windows. Hearing sourly hearings here, followed by sweetly hearings there. Not always only playground children either, but windowseeings and windowhearings of rainstorms and roadtraffic, of songbirds and spanielwalkers.

Each time both scenes outside the two windows just exactly the same.

But each time each scene outside the two windows just exactly as different as each time before.

Here unhappy, there happy.

Here joyless.

There joyful.

Day after day after day, his apartment’s two windows revealed two worlds to Waldo. Day after day after day, Waldo never could decide which of these two worlds was true, which world real.

Was it all a place of sadness down below him, grim and grimacing, everyone scowling and scratching to endure the endless unplayful hours? Or was it a place of energies and enthusiasms, with songsweet laughter bubbling effervescent through roadtraffic and rainstorms, all playful to cheer the songbirds and spanielwalkers alike?

Once himself outdoors down below the two windows, Waldo could never decide which was what. Day after day after day Waldo walked down the walk beside the roadtraffic, through the rainstorms, passing beneath the songbirds and passing past the spanielwalkers with Waldo himself all fullup of feelings indeed most curious. And mostly quite confused. Even his cubicled workingplace seemed different now somehow – but why, and how?

The which and the what, the why and the how of it all seemed ever as muddled as ever before.

And then, well, it happened.

Because one day after one day and another day, Waldo found one most curious wondering among the many wonders that wound through Waldo’s own head. Yes, one day Waldo himself snorted in surprisement over this most curious wonder: “Maybe both the unhappy and the happy, yes, maybe both were both always there. On the playground, in the rainstorms and the roadtraffic and all the rest. Joyless and joyful both always both just as real! Hmmmm … I wonder why I never noticed before?”

The why and the how and the which and the what of it all, Waldo never could quite explain. But instantly he just knew it was all so. And Waldo would never let himself unknow all the two windows had taught him for some many months or more.

Yes, Waldo always had found just what he wanted to find below a windowpane. No, it was no difference below now making those two windowscenes unsame. He could find the world scowling, much like Waldo’s own scowls. Uncuriously all playless with soursongs sounding like howls. Or he could find the world playful with sweetsongs of joys. Curiously no scowlseeings to see with no hearings of noise.

Playless and sour.

Or playful and sweet.

Waldo decided this hour by hour when up looking out windows or down walking the street.

He could hear it all just as noise or could hear it just as all song – and not one of his hearings really was wrong. Just the same with his seeings, both unhappy and happy were real there outside. But which seeings he saw there he’d somehow decide.

A snort of surprisement seems a wise way to react when two different windows show two quite different facts.

Yes, all joyful the play there! Or no, maybe not.

People can only discover outside them, yes, the things inside them they've already got.

Moral: The world always has both good and bad but we decide which one most influences our life.