"Resolved"?

This is the 800 pound gorilla in the room for many, me as much as anyone, in the environment I exist in most of the time. In another part of the country, it would be different, which is also a serious concern, because it involves a child, who, in another environment would behave differently.

It's more acceptable to act 'homophobic' (for example), so they adapt. They weren't raised that way. It would be unpopular or stressful to behave in any other way than the others around them that they wish to be accepted by or survive amongst, though in other places they're free to be accepting of others' differences.

To be accepting of differences in others that are not tolerated or acceptable, they risk being categorized or labeled the same as the unaccepted group just for saying its okay for others to be who they are.

So they 'adapt', to survive; in other words, they suppress their true feelings. The right answer isn't how such a child really feels, it's the answer they've been conditioned to think others want to hear.

So they swallow the truth, or say what they anticipate others most want to hear, to survive. Inside, it eats away at identity, and over time manifests the telltale signs of the suppression in other ways. The same goes for topics regarding race, religion, gender, spirituality, and on and on.

The result is inner and outer conflict, resentment, anger, acting out, self-blame, confusion, and buried emotions, many other things that surface later, sometimes sooner, in ways that cannot always be recognized, or called something else, based upon the lens through which the observer's experiences leave off or are limited.

The effects are life long and limiting in profound and far-reaching ways that last a lifetime. Unrecognized or addressed not only takes away a childhood and limits potential generally, it affects everything else as well, for the child, and everyone they will ever know.

Unexpectedly, the documentary movie Resolved and others of related threads illustrate the results of nature over nurture. Two young men of color by inspiration and determination are trained in a craft otherwise foreign to their upbringing and thrust into worlds where the limitations of their generation are deconstructed under all but the most unforgiving forms of conflict: what has become the 'sport' of high school debate.

From intuition and emotion alone, as they weren't born when traditional debate existed, they challenge what it has become, and appear to make a mark in its future. We share and relate painfully the emotions they encounter, despite their strongest efforts to overcome the invisible walls they run against in environments where what is taken for granted is put under the microscope, determined inappropriate and outdated, yet still at the mercy of the unenlightened, prevails, for a time. The movie ends as they embark on to college, transformed. This description does not do the film justice. One must witness their journey to begin to understand. A metaphor for the 'big picture'? Perhaps.

In another part of the country another version of the same 'debate' goes on: the "White Elephant" v. the "Brown Gorilla". Who 'hates' who most? Is there really 'hate' on both sides? Where does it come from? Why do we take it out on the nearest possible 'representative', who may not represent who we think at all?