The most important reason China must stop its destruction of Tibet is that this behavior is unworthy of the Chinese people.

Like most people in the West, my first taste of China was its food.   I was willing to be friends just on the basis of the simple deliciousness of the fried rice. Then, as a student, I began to study Chinese poets; to wear Chinese cloth slippers and Mandarin collared shirts.  Later still I discovered the I Ching, so magical a book I still feel it is capable of thinking. Through that book I was able to connect with much ancient wisdom of China, and to use it as a friend and guide in my life.  Much later still, suffering from various aches and pains of the physical body, I discovered the wonders of Chinese medicine: acupressure, acupuncture, moxi-bustion, horrible tasting herbs (yuck) which, nonetheless, did the trick.  More recently I have enjoyed the benefits of qi gong.  Last December a qi gong master taught me four simple exercises that eliminated a sizeable amount of pain from my life.  And not to forget, it was a large Chinese communist, wearing a gray Mao Zedong  suit, who, at a Spelman college mixer in Atlanta, Georgia, over thirty years ago,  taught me to waltz.
 
One of China’s greatest writers, Ding Ling, was someone I considered a friend; her stories of life before, during, and after the revolution greatly encouraged me to persevere in my own work.  When I visited China in 1983, a few years before she died, we were able to visit.  She had never given up her belief in the necessity of struggle for true democracy and the freedom of women.  She had been harrassed by every single regime that came to power in China.  Imprisoned, beaten, paraded through the streets in blackened face and dunce’s cap, her husband killed.   And yet, she kept going.
 
In times like these, when militarily powerful countries are everywhere  preying on the weak, it is imperative that we, as people of the world, remember who we are.  
 
I was reminded of this recently while watching a video about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the two women in the 19th century responsible for the emancipation of American white women.  They had known and admired John Brown, the elderly white man who, with a small band of similarly dedicated men, including his own sons, began the attack on the institution of slavery that in the end - after a long bloody Civil War - brought the physical enslavement of my people to a close.  One of his supporters, Garrit Smith, accused of treason for giving funds to John Brown and ridiculed and denounced for giving some his property to runaway slaves,  lost his mind, and was placed in an insane asylum.
 
I wish I could tell him today how sane he was.  And how happy I am to claim him, and John Brown, as well as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as my patriots of choice.  I might have been able to hate all white people, given their overwhelming indifference, over hundreds of years, to the suffering of my people, both African and Native, but how can I, if John Brown died to free me and Garrit Smith risked not simply losing his life and property, but also his compassionate mind.
 
My debt to Tibetans is also immense.  They have brought joy and peace to so many people in the world it is agonizing to think of anyone deliberately harming them.  I encountered them first, not through food, but through wisdom. Ancient wisdom handed down, treasured, preserved, and now presented to a world that needs it almost as much as we need clean drinking water.  Meditation, amazing teachings of compassion and fearlessness. Warriorship.
 
And here is an interesting thing.  What I learn from the Chinese and what I learn from the Tibetans goes together so smoothly that it is obvious to this African-AmerIndian mind that Tibetans and Chinese, at the deepest levels, share a complementary consciousness.  It is this complementary consciousness that must be acknowledged, affirmed, and, especially among the youth, encouraged.
 
The Chinese people who oppose the destruction of Tibet must continue to say so.  And not simply the Chinese people who reside in China.  There is a large Chinese diaspora, similar to that of Africans; there are Chinese Americans living here who  deplore the genocide of the Tibetan people.  They must speak. Because of history, because of ancestry, because of blood and mind, Chinese people, wherever they are, risk being thought of only as the destroyers of Tibet.  As all white people were thought of as slave owners and sadists until a few brave souls among them rose up and said: Not in my name.  That all China has given the world might be overshadowed by its destruction of Tibet, will prove a heavy burden, and one no Chinese person in the future or in the present will want to bear.
 
I call on the Chinese in their millions, within and without the borders of China, to extend the hand of friendship to your cousins, the Tibetan people.  Much has already been destroyed - even air, water, food. But it is never too late to honor one’s own innate decency in whatever ways one can.  Now is the time to use the ingenuity and resourcefulness for which you are famous.  The government of China is, after all, made up of your children.  Of your fathers and uncles and brothers and sometimes your mothers and daughters and cousins .  It isn’t as if the government is comprised of strangers.  Which is how most people of color think of our own government,  which is as destructive as China’s.
 
Looking deeply, we see that the idea of “enemy” is obsolete. That we are so alike it is humorous.  When we make war on other people it is as if our head decides to bomb our foot; as if one arm chops off the other one.  We poison another’s well only to drink the poison as rain.  We brainwash other people only to find their thoughts embedded in our heads.   War is a dead end. (No pun intended).  And it is impossible anyway to take from others without at the same moment robbing ourselves.  As our countries bomb children thousands of miles away, our own children lose childhood.  They lose any notion that adults are caring, trustworthy beings.  They begin to suspect they may never be safe from us.  What is this likely to mean?  Bigger bombs when their generation gets its turn.

Projection
 
“My friends the enemy,” the Dalai Lama calls the people who are destroying his country and themselves right along with it.  That is a compassionate, deep look that leaves the heart open, though its suffering is beyond imagining.

The Dalai Lama remembers who he is, for the sake of his people.  Because he remembers who he is, they remember who they are, and act accordingly. Preserving essential wisdom, sharing it with us all. This is real leadership because it sparks the leadership each of us has in our own hearts.

Only a few people doing what is right changes everything.  

We can be the seasoning in the bread.
 
Each of us must offer what we can, remembering that Mother Earth has already offered all that She has.  Demonstrating perfectly how it is done.
        
One Earth
One People
One Love
 
One Earth
One People
One Love
 
One Earth
One People
One Love