The Responsibilities We Share
“While not a close friend, Taneesha shared a lot about herself in the small group Zoom session. We all lost a part of our soul during the eight minutes and forty-six seconds that it took to murder George Floyd. I have spent a lot of time thinking and talking with friends during the last two weeks. Taneesha’s views have shaped the way I think about myself, my work and the opportunities and responsibilities we share.”
The convergence of a global pandemic that has killed more than 112,000 people and a public uprising against police brutality toward Black people have wracked the US. We have witnessed failures on so many levels. Our leaders, our systems, and our faiths have failed us, and we have failed them. What adds irony to the physical and social suffering is that the US public equity markets are virtually unchanged for the year to date. We want to unpack this irony – to explore the nature of our society, our relationship to our society and our roles.
The US has a tortured history. The settlers eviscerated the First Americans – wiping out millions of indigenous people and their civilizations during the colonial period. Having stolen their land the white majority enslaved millions of people from Africa to work that land. More than 150 years of history span the period when the first enslaved people arrived into Virginia and US independence. In a stroke of irony Thomas Jefferson wrote: “all men are created equal” into the US Constitution (1776). Nearly 250 years later, we are gathering after Sunday worship to witness public lynchings much the way people could have one hundred years ago.
Racism is a blight on US history. Exploitation and extraction produced extraordinary wealth and created a social structure that defies our founding constitution. Today we have to ask ourselves if we are finally awake to the truth of our wealth. Do we fully understand the human suffering and the degradation of the environment that built the great cities, that collected the fine works of art in our museums and financed the wars of conquest that dominate US history in both the 20th and 21st centuries: not just Viet Nam and Iraq. What does it mean when the civilian leader in charge of the US military uses language like “dominating the battle space” with respect to applying force against Americans protesting the murder of innocent citizens?
Is our society capable of healing itself? What are you doing to heal yourself so that you can be a force for repair? I am unsure that I am doing enough. I know a lot of people that are asking that question. My hope is that I, and people like me, will see that the work ahead is required on many different levels. We need to restore the human capital that has been systematically consumed over the last 400 years of our history. We need to regenerate the environmental capital that we have devoured, converting natural resources into financial wealth. We need to build the systems and institutions that can define our values and to replace the ones that have failed us. Civic capital is scarce in our society today – and we all have shared responsibility to rebuild it.
People are demonstrating here in the US and all around the world – in the hope that we can reimagine ourselves. With the world’s pity for our suffering and with our own people crying out in anger and pain – can we change? With the economic collapse from COVID we see nature trying to recover – can we support the earth that supports us?
Three active questions can help us to answer this question. (Sherri Mitchel gifted me the first two questions.) Take the quiz and see how hard it is:
What is enough? (How much do you need, do you have enough - or do you need more?)
What is enough for your community? (When you look at all the people and the sentient beings who live in your community – do they have enough?)
Who and what is your community? (Who do you know and love in your community? Who knows and loves you?)
If you are concerned about the events of the last few weeks, if you have a desire to contribute to making the world a better place, and if you are curious about the role that you might play – please let us know. We are asking ourselves these questions and looking for ways to meet some of the huhan, environmental and civic capital deficits that we face. We see these challenges as opportunities, and we are excited to engage!
“Taneesha’s grandmother was born in Alabama and shared stories about young men who were lynched during her childhood. Taneesha has two boys, a five-year old and a fifteen-year old. She’s not worried about her youngster. She is terrified that her teenager could be lynched. Taneesha lives in my community.”