By Shellie Miller-Farrugia
After Valentine’s Day of this year, the world has been watching a little known area in a corner of Broward County, Florida. For residents of Parkland until that day, it was home… It was safe… It was a pretty idyllic place to live.
My personal journey with Parkland began in 1974. Whenever we told friends where we had moved, their response was always accompanied by a question mark. “Where?” 40-some years later, everyone knows.
One thing I’ve realized in the last six weeks is that all of us in Parkland, Coral Springs and the surrounding neighborhoods are under a microscope. If we express grief, we are pitied. If we express passion that doesn’t agree with a specific agenda, we are judged….and if we are joyful about something (a child’s accomplishments, a business promotion, a tasteful joke) we are often seen as inconsiderate.
This is not who we are! We have always been a community with backbone, with goals, and with a deep love for one another DESPITE our differences. Over the years, we have proven to be a family community that rallies together, helps one another and gets things done! Whether we agree or disagree on what the end goal looks like, we have still been an area built on cohesiveness, encouragement and moving forward. My personal opinion is that focusing on and representing ourselves as victims will not create a positive outcome.
We don’t have to agree, but we still need to be neighbors. Let’s make a conscious effort not to segregate ourselves into categories, which further magnifies our disparities. This damages the connection between all of us! Instead of focusing on “my ideas“ versus “your ideas,” let’s realize that despite our assorted viewpoints, we are sharing a special corner of the world…and we are all still family.
“Social cohesion was built into language long before Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter – we’re tribal by nature. Tribes today aren’t the same as tribes thousands of years ago. It isn’t just religious tribes or ethnic tribes now: It’s sports fans, it’s communities, it’s geography.”
-Peter Guber