"I Am Somebody!"

Zoom image during the July 23 Humanity Club virtual session

At the Humanity Project, nobody is just anybody. We strongly believe, and teach, that everybody is somebody.

When human beings know their own value, they also naturally value others. So our Humanity Club sessions emphasize the importance of the kids in our program, whether we’re live in the classroom as in the past or online now during the pandemic. They learn, for instance, that all human beings are made of stardust. Literally. We teach them the science behind that knowledge — and help them feel the poetry and beauty of the idea. Each week, the entire group several times calls out key phrases such as, “I am somebody! I am special!” And we talk about why this is true for them, what makes each child somebody, what makes each special. And then they learn how to use those wonderful qualities so they can help others.

Everything is connected to the Humanity Project’s mission of working toward equality for each, respect for all. Our students understand they can do something to advance that cause by the way they act in daily life… and we work with them to come up with concrete ideas to create a more respectful community where everyone has an equal value.

But no one can accomplish such things if they don’t believe in themselves. Or if they’re afraid. So the Humanity Club curriculum includes lessons on overcoming fears. Look at this drawing, which one of our kids cranked out in 15 minutes during the July 23 Humanity Club.

Afraid of lions? Not anymore.

It shows one young girl’s fear of lions — and the cage she built in her imagination to protect herself from harm. Other children depicted different fears and different ways to conquer them, including a fear of the dark, of scary movies … and in one case, of getting bad grades! But each student had the chance to consider what that fear meant, why they had it and how they might let go of it. This is just one of the many life lessons learned in our Humanity Club program. And that program is just one of several the Humanity Project offers for free.

We hope you may want to get involved with our work, whether by volunteering or donating … or simply spreading our ideas on social media. Look over our resources here on this website as well as on our other sites, www.thp4kids.com and www.thp4parents.com. You’ll find that the Humanity Project truly does believe everybody is somebody. Somebody very special.

Check Out Our Podcast!

This will be a brief post. Mostly because we’d like you to listen rather than read.

A new podcast has just been posted — and we think you’ll find it very interesting. Our wonderful friend from State Farm, Corporate Responsibility Analyst Jose Soto, is interviewed about two important community programs: Neighborhood Assist and Virtual Back to School Drive. Both are State Farm programs and each helps fund vital efforts that many communities need. Won’t you listen — and if you can, consider taking part? You just might win $25,000. Listen to the new podcast.

Reaching Out While Staying In

Humanity Club, pandemic-style

The Humanity Project is based on connection, cooperation, collaboration. Our work requires being there, in person, to teach and explain, to motivate and inspire.

Or so we thought.

As folks all around the world are learning, this horrible pandemic has a way of forcing us to find new approaches to familiar tasks. For the Humanity Project, this has included holding our acclaimed Humanity Club meetings online. Humanity Club works with young kids of color to help them understand respect for all as well as the meaning of equality. We also develop their leadership skills and encourage our kids to take these lessons to their peers.

This summer we’re again working through Broward County’s Parks Department here in South Florida, with great thanks to Ms. Orika Carty. The kids are great and so is Ms. Carty and her staff.

Of course we’re hoping to get back into the classroom with the children soon — and to begin our other programs in-person as intended. But meanwhile, the Humanity Project is reaching out by staying in… and continuing our important work as we keep our distance to help stop the spread of an awful disease.

Black Lives Matter!

Look at the kids in this Humanity Project photo. And ask yourself: When they are adults, will they face the same systemic racism and police violence as their parents and grandparents?

At this moment when the Black Lives Matter movement has gained wider acceptance, our nonprofit group reaffirms our commitment to “equality for each, respect for all.” That is what we stand for. It’s what the Humanity Project has always been about.

We recognize the racism embedded in our American culture. We acknowledge the realities of white privilege. We see the antagonism toward people of color that too often drives the actions of police officers locally and around the nation. Oh yes, we have seen the videos, the final agonizing moments of George Floyd and so many others. Far too many others. Like you, we also have wondered as we watched: “How can anybody be so callous? How can one human being treat another human being in this way?”

At the Humanity Project, we believe the answer lies within each of us. At the core of the human psyche.

As we grow through childhood into adults, nearly every person learns to strongly doubt ourselves at times, acquiring a deep insecurity and self-contempt as part of our coping mechanisms in a competitive and often hostile society. To widely varying degrees most folks feel lacking somehow, as if we’re not good enough, as if there’s something wrong with us. For some people, those feelings are less intense and more manageable in daily life. For others, such feelings become forces that power many of their thoughts, beliefs and actions.

We think this is what happens when people adopt virulent racist opinions. They are looking for ways to feel better about themselves, to justify a sense that, “I’m better than this person because of the color of my skin.” Documents from the mid-1800s prove this attitude was prevalent among slaveowners and other whites in the American South. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. noted the same attitude in his own time and called it “the drum major instinct.” At the Humanity Project, we feel sure it’s still the fundamental problem today. Racism is the bitter fruit of self-loathing.

A desire to exist in meaningful ways, the need to love, appear hardwired into our individual personalities from birth. There is an innate goodness in each human being. But that goodness can be pushed so far into the mind’s background that it seems to disappear completely in some individuals. Only immediate self-interest matters to them. For those who suffer the disease of racism, their attempts to prove themselves superior to people of color are required to relieve their self-loathing. Their relief is brief, though — and soon they need the next racist thought, comment or action.

Not to get too entangled here in heavy psychological analysis. But we think it’s very important to have some grasp of racism’s profound emotional roots. Yes indeed, we live with a system that perpetuates racism. But ask yourself why. Why has that system not been dismantled and reinvented by now? Why do police so often continue to target blacks for harassment or worse? We would not need to call out systemic racism if enough white individuals truly wanted change, if enough police believed in the value of every human being. But that’s clearly not the case … which returns us to the origins of racism. The need by some individuals to believe they are superior to other individuals. “The drum major instinct” again.

Working from this perspective, the Humanity Project creates innovative programs, writings and materials that help individuals better understand their own value and that of everyone else. This allows more of us to treat each person with respect as an equally valuable member of the human race.

Humanity’s problems are the problems of the human heart. “Equality for each, respect for all” emerge naturally from within the healthy, well-balanced individual. No one who feels good about who they are needs to put anybody down to lift themselves up. The Black Lives Matter movement is a reminder that blacks in our society remain mired in a system that treats them as inferior. And that the time is horribly overdue to change that — finally teaching many more people to acknowledge the obvious. Each life of a black person is valuable, each life is important. Every black life matters.

Replacing The Handshake: A Modest Suggestion

This is the fifth in a new 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 the goodness and inherent value of humanity, ideas that are the foundation of the Humanity Project’s work.

Let’s bring back the peace sign. I’m talking here about the hand sign used by the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s to express feelings of gentle peacefulness toward each other. I remember. I was one of them.

But now, as the Age of COVID demands new rules of social interaction for the immediate future, the handshake is a memory. So are charming habits such as freely hugging anyone who seemed they might enjoy it and kisses on the cheek, so common in many cultures outside the United States especially.

So yes, today the Humanity Project humbly offers a solution drawn from the hippie past. The two-finger vertical peace sign, which of course can double as a V for victory over COVID. (According to the Daily Mirror newspaper in the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill was far from the first to use that famous World War Two symbol for victory over the Nazis: “This is because the ‘V sign’ was first used by English longbowmen in the 1415 Battle of Agincourt to mock the defeated French army. The longbowmen relied on these two fingers to fire their arrows to deadly effect upon the enemy, which was a key factor in the victory. It represented a show of defiance and derision by the English soldiers, and showed the French army that all they needed was these two fingers to win the bloody battle.”)

Once the martial V evolved into the 60s peace sign, I loved that sweet symbol of togetherness, of a caring humanity. I flashed it often back then, especially when greeting or leaving the company of other long-haired folks of the period. And I find myself using it once again more and more often in recent years, spontaneously and sometimes even to my own surprise. To me, the peace sign still means “hello friend” or perhaps “goodbye friend.” I think it’s a beautiful display of bonding among people.

Not that the peace sign ever really has quite gone away. Some of today’s youth already use it, even turning the upright fingers on their side when the mood strikes them. I like it.

But for an all-purpose, post-Great Lockdown, socially distanced method of demonstrating our affection or friendliness or just general pleasantness as at a meeting, why not that wonderful holdover from the peace-and-love decades? The traditional vertical two-finger peace sign. I have for many years felt that we have yet to tap into the large reservoir of loving social consciousness that was one hallmark of the hippie era. I’ve floated the idea of creating a Humanity Project task force formed wholly of Baby Boomers who still want to make a contribution. We may yet try that. But for now, oh yes, let’s bring back the peace sign. Let’s each begin to use it. Maybe share this blog on social media and with friends or family. Who knows where this may lead. Or not. I’ve learned there’s no telling in advance whether an online campaign may go viral. That’s in the lap of the gods.

Still, the world needs something joyful, something widely understood and widely shared to replace the handshake, the hug and the cheek kiss, doesn’t it? The peace sign just could be it.

Carrying Us Through COVID

When the COVID-19 crisis began, so did The Great Lockdown. This social isolation instantly made survival a challenge for many individuals, businesses — and nonprofits, including the Humanity Project. Enter Our Fund Foundation. Within days their amazing CEO, David Jobin, had reached out with vital questions to all the agencies they fund: What can we do to help? What do you need most?

Our Fund Foundation supports agencies that work to improve life for the LGBTQ community, with the Humanity Project among them. Of course what we needed was no different than most of those other nonprofits: funding to get through the lockdown.

Not long after, the Humanity Project received word that Our Fund had created a Resilience Fund of $150,000, looking for a donor match of that amount or more. As it turned out the always generous LGBTQ community and allies quickly came through. And the Humanity Project received a check for $5,000 to help us survive the crisis.

We can’t thank Our Fund Foundation enough, along with David Jobin and his great team. They wisely delivered this much-needed funding to us and the other nonprofits with a minimum of conditions or paperwork. Just use the money as needed, they told everyone. We can assure you, that’s just what we’re doing.

We hope you’ll take just a few minutes to watch this lovely brief video that Our Fund Foundation put together to thank those who donated to the Resilience Fund. Like Our Fund itself, these individuals made an important difference. And we are grateful, very grateful. Watch the Our Fund Foundation Resilience Fund video.

Good Neighbors, Through Thick and Thin

What can you say about someone who is always there for you, in good times and bad? Even more unusual, what can you say about a major corporation that never falters in their support, no matter how challenging the circumstances?

At the Humanity Project, we have two words for such a corporation: State Farm.

This genuinely public-spirited company has been a consistent sponsor of the Humanity Project since 2008, when they backed our new antibullying programs. Now those programs are firmly established and highly acclaimed — an achievement that might never have happened without State Farm. In more recent years State Farm has helped us create and expand our innovative I Care program, teaching teens and adults to drive attentively and with respect for the lives of everyone on the roads.

Well before the current COVID-19 crisis, State Farm approved the Humanity Project’s grant application for $15,000 to take I Care to the next level. But here is what you need to know about our good neighbors: Once the economic freefall began along with an unprecedented social lockdown, State Farm honored their commitment. Those funds are already in the Humanity Project account. To us, that money says everything. It says this is a quality company guided by the finest ethical principles.

We must specifically give our deep gratitude to Jose Soto, State Farm’s Corporate Responsibility Analyst for Florida and Georgia. Jose is widely regarded as a great asset to our communities. State Farm is lucky to have Jose — and the Humanity Project is fortunate to work with this wonderful man.

So yes, State Farm does more than call itself the good neighbor company. In good times, in bad times, through thick and thin, they prove over and over what being a good neighbor really means. And in the midst of a historic worldwide crisis, what could be more important? Thank you, once again, State Farm!

Inspiration When Most Needed

On Thursday, April 16, members of the Humanity Project took to the streets … at a safe social distance, of course. (And with full approval of the local police department.) Our goal: To serenade residents at two large apartment complexes in Wilton Manors, Florida, hoping to lift their spirits, get them to sing along and also to thank essential lockdown workers including doctors, nurses, grocery clerks, drivers and first responders. The event was sponsored by our good friends at Our Fund Foundation.

What we didn’t know until we tried: Nearly soundproof glass at both apartment complexes prevented too many folks from hearing our message of hope. But those who did hear and respond seemed to appreciate our efforts. For our part, we were glad to reach out and connect with fellow human beings in this way.

We plan to try again, perhaps with advance notification to the residents of buildings we will visit. But for now, please know that all of us at the Humanity Project remain committed to respect for the equal value of every human being … and to reminding as many people as we can reach about the goodness and inherent value of humanity. We are stronger than COVID.

Remember The Garden

As we post this blog, the world feels a little crazy. The fear and the obsession with COVID-19 has everyone locked down, locked in … and afraid.

So we wanted to offer a little relief. It was less than four weeks ago that the Humanity Project held a beautiful community event at Lauderdale Lakes Library. Funded by our good friends at Children’s Services Council of Broward County, we brought together a large number of kids, parents and local residents to create a Garden of Respect.

We’ve assembled a short video from that day, with original music by our founder. We thought you might enjoy it more than ever just now, in the midst of the madness. We invite you to revisit this video often, to share it with others — and to remember it from time to time until this crisis ends. Beautiful things happened before the era of coronavirus. Beautiful things will soon happen again, bringing us together to help create a more respectful and equal world.

Here’s that link: Watch the Garden of Respect video on the Humanity Project YouTube Channel.

Viral Survival

This is the fourth in a new 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 the goodness and inherent value of humanity, ideas that are the foundation of the Humanity Project’s work.

I vividly remember the days and weeks after 9/11. Those memories have taught me something about coping with the current coronavirus pandemic.

I was fortunate enough to have been untouched physically by those horrific terrorist attacks, as was everyone I knew. No family member, friend or colleague of mine was killed that day. But like nearly all the people I cared about, I was wounded by the jetliners of September 11, 2001.

I mourned the senseless loss of life, felt it viscerally, deeply. This came over my body like an illness that drained and weakened me. But I also suffered greatly from fear. I was afraid, very afraid for my nation, for all of my countrymen and countrywomen and for all those I loved. And I was afraid for myself. Very afraid indeed.

And so today I think of the coronavirus as something so new it’s old. Yes, COVID-19 is the latest threat to humanity’s health, both physical and mental. This fresh strain of disease seemed to materialize as though from the clouds, suddenly raining down upon our everyday lives. But it feels disturbingly familiar too. The coronavirus has brought with it the return of that same fear. Fear not only for the American population this time but for all the people of the world and, yes, for all those I love. And, of course, fear once again for myself.

That lingering bonedeep terror comes over us whenever we endure some especially jarring trauma. Our reaction is understandable, it is human. It is the nature of our imagination. Perhaps the greatest of all humanity’s gifts turns against us at such moments — our ability to conjure detailed thoughts about things that don’t exist. We dwell on the sudden new threat, letting the possibilities simmer and bubble into a dreadful stew. This kind of dark worry, of dread, is predictable enough. We need only look to our past.

As a journalist I interviewed dozens of men and women who survived the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Many recalled for me the weeks immediately afterwards, their wild fears inflamed by rumors of new enemy assaults and networks of spies stealing around Oahu. But their fears were unjustified. There were no further attacks, no vast spy networks. After 9/11, I was among those who worried obsessively: Would the terrorists hijack more planes? Would they launch car bombings? Would they poison our water supplies? Soon enough, an anthrax scare had many of us washing our hands after touching the letters in our mailbox. But all these fears came to nothing. No more hijackings, no bombings, no poisonings … and no anthrax in the mail delivered to our homes.

I recount this history for a reason. It should offer a reassuring reminder that our imaginations just now may be our biggest problem. Will I get the virus? Will I pass it to others? Will I end up in the hospital? Or worse, will I die from the coronavirus? What about the economy, our jobs, our income? And can life ever really return to normal? None of this is meant to suggest that we should be anything but extremely cautious, just as those who study pandemics suggest. Wash our hands often, of course, and use hand sanitizers. Avoid touching our face unless we know our fingers are clean. Keep a sensible six-foot or more social distance. And so on — by now, no doubt, you know all the good advice.

But we can also relieve our psychological distress to some considerable degree by remembering our previous trauma-induced fears. As so often, Mark Twain left us an observation that’s both witty and insightful: “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened,” Twain noted.

No one yet knows what COVID-19 will bring to us, individually or as a family, as a nation or as the human race. But it seems safe to say that the future for the vast majority of people is unlikely to turn out anywhere near as terrible as our thoughts. We may know our worst troubles, but for most of us they will never happen.

Society vs. The Individual

This is the third in a new 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 the goodness and inherent value of humanity, ideas that are the foundation of the Humanity Project’s work.

I learned this lesson as a child who was badly bullied by several neighborhood boys. There is a difference, often a big difference, between the individual and the group. Living in our small Ohio town, I got along wonderfully most of the time when alone with one of my friends. But when more than one other boy was part of the mix, especially whenever several of us played together, the atmosphere changed. The kid who had been nice to me when throwing a baseball back and forth the day before, just the two of us, suddenly had become aggressive. Often hostile, demeaning, even threatening. I couldn’t understand why back then. Now I believe I do understand. And I also believe that this very fact of human life may offer us some reassurance as adults, oddly enough.

Every individual has a powerful reservoir of goodness, decency, love within them. I feel certain of this based on my 67 years of life, most of which I’ve worked as a writer and a close observer of my fellow Homo sapiens. But this reservoir can seem to vanish as if a mirage when we human beings coalesce into a group. The basic reason, I believe, is that nearly all individuals worry obsessively about the opinion of others. We want to impress, show off or find some form of validation that makes us feel good individually. As the great psychologist and philosopher, William James expressed this: “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” And when we seek this outside approval, we sometimes lose our bearings as an individual. We may feel things, think things, say and do things we wouldn’t without someone watching. We can even become hostile, demeaning, threatening. Or worse.

Yet I take great hope in the individual goodness of human beings. And I would suggest that you should too.

Why? Think about it. If I’m right, this means that everyone you know, everyone you meet, has a good heart down at the foundation of their being. And it’s usually possible to reach that goodness inside people — if we don’t judge them. That’s why the Humanity Project teaches our kids and adults alike a concept I call “shared value.” We shift our conscious attention, focusing less on what others think of us, more on what others think of themselves. This helps diminish our tendency to quickly and harshly judge other people, extending toward them a more accepting attitude. And that attitude in turn helps us feel better about ourselves by reducing our worry about the opinions of others. The value is shared.

Yes, it’s true. When people get with other people, we change. Too frequently, not for the better. We maneuver and connive for personal advantage. We often lie and cheat, sometimes steal or act violently. Even crowded highways can bring out our worst, many drivers scooting through traffic with reckless abandon to get ahead of a few cars for no sensible reason. The many problems of our society are the problems of individuals interacting with other individuals. These problems are rooted in the human desire for approval in one way or another. But I am now convinced this is a correctable situation. Individuals can learn to transcend ego for the benefit of others and themselves. We can raise children who learn to acquire feelings of their value more from within than from without.

Until that day comes, we all can harbor a justifiable hope for humanity. And a firm belief in the goodness and inherent equal value of every individual. There’s nothing truly wrong with any one of us as a human being. Once we learn to accept this and relax about ourselves, our individual value will no longer seem at stake when we’re around other people. And our society can begin to prize cooperation over competition, partnership over pettiness, taking a grand step forward in the cultural evolution of our species.

Equality & You

The fight for true equality begins inside our own heads. Each of us.

Yes, this means commitment to a belief in the equal value of every individual, regardless of gender, racial characteristics, religion, sexual orientation or anything else. We must learn to genuinely respect the importance of every human being.

But at the Humanity Project, we know this kind of social conscience doesn’t come easily to most folks. And with good reason — because most of us doubt our own value far too often. We can’t fully believe in the equal value of everyone unless we believe in our own equal value. We require feelings of self-worth. As long as the gay person, the black or brown person, the Jewish or Muslim person, the woman doubt themselves, they will at some level doubt others too. The same goes for any of us, whether we are in a minority or not. Once we allow the world to make us question our worth, we soon will question the worth of at least some of our fellow humans. One necessarily follows the other.

But this same principle also works in reverse. We can uncover more feelings of self-worth by shifting our focus in a specific way as we go about everyday living: We try to think less often about how others feel about us, more often about how others feel about themselves. Instead of worrying, “Does that guy like me?” we ask, “What can I do to help that guy like himself?” We’re not talking about idle compliments or lavish praise here. Many times just some careful listening, sincere eye contact, a smile can help people feel better about themselves. This shift in conscious attention forces us to accept the importance of self-worth within each person and to recognize that nearly every individual struggles to acquire those feelings. And this helps us as it helps others — the value is shared. “Shared value,” we simply call it. Because in the end, we can’t escape the realization that if everyone really does possess an equal intrinsic value, we must possess that same value. By entering through the back door, we inevitably bump into feelings of our own worth as a human being.

The shared value system works if we’ll only exert a little focused mental effort — give it a try sometime. This simple but profound shift changes our perspective on the world. Every person we meet seems more vulnerable, more in need of our kindness and respect and validation. Our altered attitude establishes a firm foundation that allows the mind to discover a greater respect for the goodness and inherent value of humanity. Including the goodness and inherent value of ourselves, each of us. The value of your own existence.

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(Fables and some music are copyrighted by the author, Robert Spencer Knotts.)

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