The past we step into and how we repair it
Well, we made it through another week in 2020s America, which means that it felt a million years long and was filled with a whiplash of emotions for many.
For me, surprisingly, one of the predominant feelings has been that of grief - grief at how utterly senseless yet also completely necessary this past four years have been. For those who needed the wake-up call, I hope it was not in vain. I hope we do not slip back into complacency, and be "we" I am thinking yes of our country as a whole, no one gets let off the hook, but I'm thinking especially of "white liberal progressives."
As the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr, said in his letter from Birmingham jail, five years before he was assassinated, and decades before he was whitewashed into becoming a widely recognized hero:
“First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
I couldn't agree more, and at this point, I wonder if we should replace "white moderate" with "white liberal progressive."
Don't get me wrong, right wing extremists pose a huge threat that needs to be taken seriously. One of the ways we fight that threat is through unity and healing, but not in the way white liberals have been talking about it this week.
In fact, all week I have found myself inwardly, or sometimes outwardly, scowling furiously at the calls for unity and healing.
I mean, I get that the new administration has to say all this stuff, and I enjoyed all the uplifting songs on Wednesday night as much as the next person, but calls for unity and healing land as violence at worst, and spiritual bypassing at best, to those most impacted by the last four years and the last four centuries of oppression if there isn't first radical truth telling, acknowledgement, and justice.
Being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. - Amanda Gorman. The Hill We Climb
There have never been words that resonated more for me in my experience of being an American.
Whether we were born here or not, and I was not, we become part of the trajectory of history, living here.
We inherit and continue living that history.
And we have a responsibility to repair it.
What if the American dream was not the myth of meritocracy and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but was instead, a dream about repairing its legacy?
What if we acknowledged that this country isn't broken because it was never designed to be any other way.
But we can redesign and reimagine it to be something it was never meant to be.
As I said, I'm not into the calls for unity and healing right now. Every bone in my body reacts every time I hear it, and it's ironic because I'm all about bridging divides.
But to bridge a divide, you first have to name it.
Some of the divides we find ourselves spending much of our time in our work bridging include the divide between (often more white) leadership and (often more diverse) staff, between knowledge and action, and between intention and results.
We bridge divides by centering on those that are more deeply impacted and harmed by our systems of oppression, and that often lands as "divisive" to those who align with power and privilege.
We believe that unity requires speaking truth to power, and power doesn't like that. That's not what power means by unity. What power often means by unity is conformity, compliance, and compromise.
What if unity were instead about truth - not the truth as power sees it, not the myth of some sort of "objectivity", but the full truth of a multitude of perspectives and experiences that are are valid and valued?
A friend shared with me that she studied Amanda Gorman's poem with her students and they felt that the light she speaks of at the end is truth.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
Can we be brave enough to see it? Can we brave enough to be it?
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Banner photo by Carter Canedy on Unsplash. Also published on LinkedIn.