Dignity: Who determines the value and worth of a life? 

Who determines the value and worth of a life? Does my life have more value because I am successful in my career than someone whose life took a different road, and they are now using substances and are homeless. This thought came to me after a conversation I had this week with someone when I commented on the Juneteenth mass shooting in a Chicago suburb where 22 people were shot and 1 was killed. I expressed my frustration with the growing violence that is happening in our inner cities across the country. This person said to me that is the risk you take when you join a gang. I looked at him and said tell that to the grandmother who was just sitting on her pouch, and she was killed by a stray bullet. Tell that to the family whose six-year-old child was shot and all she was doing was playing in her yard. Tell that to my 19-year-old cousin who made the choice to change his life and that choice was taken away by the gang he was trying to get away from. Tell that to the black women of Chicago that make up 25% of the victims of violent crimes. I told him that violence does not just affect the people doing wrong. It hurts those who are innocent and trying to do what is right.    

I get passionate sometimes and often my heart starts speaking for me before my brain can stop me. I was not always like that, but it was the principles of dignity that changed me. Before I was Charles Redd MS, RN Chief Diversity Officer, I was Charles Redd young black male who lived in the city of Boston with his 2 younger brothers and his mother. My family gave me value and worth but for a significant part of my young life I allowed the world to take that from me. I allowed the world to tell my story. They told me that because of where I lived, the color of my skin, and being in a single parent home I would be dead or in jail by age 24. Now, I had an amazing mother who gave me all the tools to succeed but for much of my late teens and early twenties I ignored those lessons and live my life in a different way.  

I was lucky because even when I was at my worse others saw good in me.  It was because they treated me with dignity that I was able to change my life. It was not easy and still isn’t, but it is what formed the principles I live by today and that is to treat people with dignity because you never know when you could be the one to help them get back on the right path. I learned through dignity that I have worth. It is determined by how I treat myself and others but if it was not for my family and all those amazing people in my life, I may have gone down a different path. 

As a nurse it is not my job to determine who I should save or who I should not save. If I have an opportunity to give you another chance in life, I will do it. It is not my job to say if your life has value just because of the choices you have made. I will honor your dignity and hope that you will build a life that is dedicated to helping others. It is why I became a nurse, and it is why as the Chief Diversity Officer of Berkshire Health I am committed to helping and speaking to those who believe they have no value or worth when I know that they do. It is my responsibility as a human on this earth.  

Who determines the value and worth of a life? We do it by honoring our own dignity, as well as the dignity of others, and connecting to a higher purpose. It is those three connections to dignity that Dr. Donna Hicks, PhD, speaks about. They are the wind in my sails and the compass that guides me. 

Charles Redd RN 

Dignity Freedom Fighter