It shapes behavior, influences choices, and narrows imagination. Institutions built on fear may achieve compliance, but they rarely cultivate transformation.
The opposite of fear is not simply courage.
It is trust.
What kind of society do we build when fear becomes policy?
Award-winning poet, playwright, and essayist. Author of four books of poetry, "Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass: Remembrance of Things Past and Present"; "Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats"; "The Black Feminine Mystique," "The Black Blood of Poetry," and a novel, "Streets of Rage," and a collection of short stories, "Conundrums: Stories of Law & Justice," written under his pen name Easy Waters. All four books are available on Amazon.com. Waters has over 25 years of experience in the criminal legal system. He is a change agent for a just society and a catalyst for change.
Amen, my brother, amen! This quote and commentary made me think of Howard Thurman’s 1949 classic text, Jesus and The Disinherited. In the second chapter, Thurman describes fear as one of the “persistent hounds of hell that dog the footsteps of the poor, the dispossessed, the disinherited.” In the Jim Crow south, it was not only the actual violence, but merely the fear of lynching that often kept Black people from resisting. Yes! Building a society that overcomes this requires not just courage, but trust as well. A deep trust that there are enough people of good will in leadership positions who are sincerely committed to building a society based on equality and justice.
William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters 
Amen, my brother, amen! This quote and commentary made me think of Howard Thurman’s 1949 classic text, Jesus and The Disinherited. In the second chapter, Thurman describes fear as one of the “persistent hounds of hell that dog the footsteps of the poor, the dispossessed, the disinherited.” In the Jim Crow south, it was not only the actual violence, but merely the fear of lynching that often kept Black people from resisting. Yes! Building a society that overcomes this requires not just courage, but trust as well. A deep trust that there are enough people of good will in leadership positions who are sincerely committed to building a society based on equality and justice.
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