My voice with the people

I have sat quietly this week, reading posts on both sides of the issue. I've been battling internally on where I stand and what I think. (this got real long, real fast. I didn't know I had so much to say.)
I'm reading the Come Follow Me lesson for this week and it says "There are likely many important issues facing your community. How can you, like the Nephites, make sure that your voice is included in 'the voice of the people?'"
Our world is a beautiful place. But it is also filled with ugliness. It is filled with privilege and poverty. The issue with racism is a complicated one. We have all been raised with bias. Sometimes we don't even recognize it. Sometimes we excuse it "it was a different time" "that's how I was raised" "it was just a joke".
Am I okay telling that to God?
The media for sure does not give a balanced report of things. I'm sure somewhere there was a black cop who killed a white guy and it didn't make the news. That is not the point. The point is there is a problem. And like it or not we are part of the problem and we need to be part of the solution. Is the media blowing things up? Maybe. But there is still a problem. Is rioting okay? No. Vandalism? No. But is it okay that people keep dying? An even bigger no. It doesn't matter who is dying. It's not okay. Black lives matter. They matter because all lives matter. Saying black lives matter doesn't take away from the value of anyone else.
I've thought before, they (who ever they may be) can get themselves out of their problems. They can work hard and find a job and get an education. This is true. They can. But I didn't consider a lot of things. I didn't understand privilege. Those things are harder to access. It's going to be much harder for them. I was born into privilege and those things were much easier for me to access. I lived in a two parent home, went to a safe public school, lived in a safe tiny town, never had to have a job to help my parents make the rent or put food on the table, etc.
They didn't choose to be born into the situation they were born. It's perpetuated through generations. Just like I have a mindset of work hard and make it because that's how I was raised, they might have a mindset of this is who I am and what I have and that's all there is. Because that's how they were raised. Good? Bad? Doesn't matter. Again it's a complicated problem and therefore complicated to solve.
We all have things that make life hard. But some people have a lot more things working against them. Should that be an excuse for them? No. But should that be an excuse for me or anyone else to turn a blind eye?
How do we break the cycle? How to we enact change?
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that we start at home. I think this is the solution for most of the problems in the world. Start at home. Teach your children morals and values. Teach your children that all lives matter. Don't let racial jokes and slurs pollute the air in your home. If your marriage is rocky, work on it. If you have a bad temper, work on it. If you are stressed out of your mind, find something to help still your mind and body. We have to ACT. We have to teach our children to ACT. We have to teach them to stand up and speak out. Be involved in your community. What are you doing to make it a better place? Teach them about how lucky they are to have been born into privilege. Ultimately we are all responsible for our actions, no matter the circumstances we were born into. But we ARE our brothers keeper. We DO have a responsibility to make sure our neighbors feel safe and ARE safe.
My "voice with the people" is that I want to be an active part of the solution instead of a silent part of the problem.