Systemic
Change
“Keep
your eyes on all that is good and beautiful and possible in the
world. Because the stories we tell create the people we become.”
Jacqueline
Lewis (Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone)
I'm spending the next few
days in Arden, North Carolina at an annual conference of progressive
thinking people. The conference is called, Awakening Soul, and the
key note speakers are Jacqueline Lewis and Barbara Brown Taylor.
At the opening last
night, Jaqueline Lewis exhorted us to imagine the world we'd like to
see, the world we'd like to live in. Would it include people of every
nation, every race and ethnic group? If we can imagine it, and we can
make it happen, but to do that, we have to get out of our comfort
zone. We have to speak up and speak out to the people we know. It is
not that we, individually, have to set our sights on changing the
world. But we do have to confront racism and misogyny in our families
and in our neighborhood and in our circle of friends. We cannot be
idle and silent in the face of it or we support it's existence and
will seem to be in agreement.
I know how hard that is
for me. I know it must be hard for you if you grew up with acceptance
of implicit and systemic racism. You may never have felt it yourself,
or acknowledged racism within your family, and you may not see
yourself as racist—hardly anyone does. But our society is
undeniably racist at its core. It is structured to disadvantage some
and advantage others—if you truly think about it, you will realize
the truth of it. Change will not be easy, will not be quick. But
willingness to address it within ourselves and within our closest
others is the beginning.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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