Friends,
It's all too much. And yet we must keep going.
Protest. Write. Call elected officials. Send money. Pray.
Quilt, work, make music. Hold your loved ones close.
Keep up the good work.
-Liz
Dr. Martin Luther King Junior
I'm struggling right now. In the past year, I often have been able to moderate my news intake, to keep tabs on what is happening without getting pulled into desperation about our times. I've been able to adjust to the uneven landscape a bit at a time.
But recently I've spent an inordinate amount of time digging into the history of Venezuela, oil, and socialist governments. And watched too many videos, and read too many video critiques, researching the deaths caused by ICE.
At the same time I'm trying to keep up with health care subsidies and trans rights and why on earth our congress is not voting on the dignity act.
That is, I'm doing all the things I've suggested in past blog posts are not a good idea. I letting the firehose of disasters overwhelm me. Because of this I listened to a TED radio podcast (linked below) on wise strategies for dealing with the unknown.
In that podcast I learned something new. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King gave the keynote address at the American Psychological Association annual meeting in September, 1967. His topic: Creative Maladjustment. (I can't help wondering what they thought he would talk about.)
The premise of Creative Maladjustment is simple. We should not adjust to oppressive systems. The role of black people in 1967 was resist rather than to adjust. To get by day-to-day, and yet to resist the ordinary rules of life in a segregated society, black people needed to creatively refuse to adjust.
King suggests that the American Psychological Association might generally recommend adjusting to the norms of society, but added: "I am sure that we will recognize that there are some things in our society, some things in our world, to which we should never be adjusted. There are some things concerning which we must always be maladjusted if we are to be people of good will. We must never adjust ourselves to racial discrimination and racial segregation. We must never adjust ourselves to religious bigotry. We must never adjust ourselves to economic conditions that take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. We must never adjust ourselves to the madness of militarism, and the self-defeating effects of physical violence."
Wow. Yes, when you put it that way, I don't want to adjust. But the fact is that until now I have adjusted. I have accepted that violence is an ordinary part of [other] people's lives. I accepted the our culture as normal.
King is quite explicit that white people (like me!) have, for the most part, adapted to the systemic violence of our US society. He asks the Psychological Association to do studies and reports to help show white people how the world really is. "What America needs to understand that it is poisoned to its soul by racism." We as white people do not accept the changes that are needed because we don't recognize how much we are hurt by the racism around us. We accept slow steps. We accept a modulated approach. Radical change is the response to significant pain. If we hide the pain, paint over it, refuse to see it, then we don't need to change.
It is wrong that Renée Nichol Good's death has created more anger among white people than all of the black and brown deaths ICE has caused to date. We have seen, complained about, and analyzed the violence but I don't think that we have felt it. It didn't feel like it might be me, or people like me.
Perhaps my distress right now is how I will wake up.
I hope, I trust, I'm sure our response is not to pull back in fear. My dream is hundreds, maybe thousands of old white ladies will be arrested. My fear is split--I'm afraid we won't show up, and I'm afraid many will be killed. Sadly, it is better for change if we are killed than if we don't show up. I wish it would not be young mother's leading the charge.
King believed “we will have to find the militant middle between riots on the one hand and weak and timid supplication for justice on the other hand.” He called for civil disobedience, that we be “aggressive but nonviolent.” Interesting words for non-violence: militant middle, and aggressive. This is not waiting to be given freedom, this is demonstrating that the oppressive forces really are oppressing us all.
The point of our non-violent action is to drive angry people to act on their anger--and in doing that to show the truth of the situation.
I hope I am ready to wake up.
What are your church, your members, your neighbors doing, these days? Reply to this email to let me know what's happening.
TED Radio hour on NPR had three TED talks about dealing with uncertainty. MLK's speech is a quick mention at the end of the second speaker. All three segments have useful advice on dealing with these times. (49 minutes)
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's 1967 Keynote for the American Psychological Association. (Text)
Flamy Grant is a bigger person than I. Don't miss this video of the song "Revenge".
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