Be a Nice Human: A Few Points to Keep in Mind

In our current {American} culture—where me first attitudes and thinly veiled racism and sanctioned bullying have become commonplace—I frequently ponder how I can better prepare the Agents to be forces for good as they grow up. So I started making a list, and the list started to expand, and I started to ramble, and then I realized I could summarize it all into six main points.

Some of my favorite humans

1. Privilege is a thing. If you don’t understand it, learn. If you have it {spoiler alert: you do} acknowledge it. Then use it to help someone who doesn’t. 
2. It is possible care about more than one issue/problem/group at a time. Compassion does not limit you to a dichotomy of caring about this at the expense of that. 
3. People are more important than symbols, rituals, or traditions. You can still respect the symbols, rituals, and traditions, but people always come first.
4. No one aspect of your personality defines you. Or anyone else. So don’t judge someone by the one thing you know about them.
5. In general it’s better to support what you love than to bash what you hate, but that doesn’t mean a little edginess is never required or appropriate. Sometimes that is the only way to break through.
6. If you’re ever tempted to say someone else deserves less than what you have because of  . . . reasons . . . you might want to evaluate those reasons.

What would you add to this list?