Maybe I am radical. Maybe I have let these ideas imbed themselves somewhere deep inside my consciousness, but is that such a bad thing? It seems increasingly likely that the world's brain has been washed "clean." Like the gardener has neglected to till the soil for some time now. All these systems are built on oppression and keeping others down, whether that was their explicit or intended purpose or not is the present concern. It's the undoing, the stripping down, and the deconstructing that needs to occur to create space for rebuilding, renewing, and healing.
This is not a manifesto on destruction or finding new ways to vilify each other. It's not defining "our" colors so in the spotlight so that "your" and regulating your colors to the shadows in the process. It's creating a more just society, a place where we all have equal voice, where we do not have to step on others just to be heard. Simultaneously this is not a place where we aim to erase anyone's ancestors. The history means something, as do the future and present-day.
If our aim was to erase the oppression of the past our journey would be endless; and while the work must continue and there must be consistent revisiting for this system to equitably provide, our platform cannot begin or end with the erasure of systems. The past is a dreadful place, I think many of us can admit that even if times were simpler for some, prices may have been reasonable for some, and resources appeared to be limitless for some. It is a deceitful lie to gaze into the window of time gone by with rose-colored glasses. Similarly, just dreaming of future utopias without taking meaningful steps in the present is next to futile.
There must be places for forgiveness first. There must be room for grace, compassion, forgiveness, and mercy for humankind. We banish everything that is not built from a place of compassion first. Banish them not to an exiled land in someone else's backyard that we will never visit, but from a breathing existence. I understand that there is much value to be found in many systems, policies, and procedures. However, until we allow ourselves and our neighbors to scrap the untrue, to remove the toxic fear, and to truly eliminate injustice, no one will be truly free.
When no one is free, we are just fooling ourselves into thinking that we have some real sense of self-determination. No matter how transparent the fishing line may be that is holding us up, it will remain there until we have the courage to cut ourselves loose. And some of us may not be able to cut loose the strings ourselves, truly we all need each other. This will take time, and along the way some of us cutting strings may do so only to tie new ones, but those are precisely the moments where we need each other. It's about interdependence, not self-reliance. It's community, not individual strength. It's accountability and transparency, not blind obedience. And finally, it is collective unity through shared power, not the mystification of the powers of a few.
This cannot be an individual journey. This cannot be a radical notion scrawled on a bathroom door somewhere. It has to be the conscience of the people or it will be nothing. And it has to be visited and revisited over and over again. If it is a brief moment in time, a phase of awakening, an age of renewal, it will be just another paper system doomed to destruction. This has to be the beginning of it all, a place where new begets new and change begets change so as to bring about something meaningful and sustainable. Something solid though simultaneously moldable. When the foam on the coffee has lost its color, scrape it off and pour something new.
