Delma Jackson III

At this time in our history we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment we do so, our spiritual growth comes to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves. Banish the word ‘struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred way and in celebration. We are the ones we have been waiting for.

Hopi Elder

A sea of pink knit hats erupting in song, laughter, and cheers. Record-breaking demonstrations across the nation and around the world. Women holding space for each other across difference, moved by the deafening roar of our own voices. Our collective power has been awakened – unapologetic, uncensored, and unbowed.

I have been in politics for my entire adult life. I have run for office eight times. I believe in the power of our institutions. I am conditioned to respond, react, and ascribe meaning because that is what has been expected of me. And yet, in this pivotal and fluid moment in history, it is not my job to have answers. It is my duty to listen. That is what I did in attendance at the Women’s March in our small Vermont capital of Montpelier, a city of less than 8,000 residents that swelled to nearly 20,000 on January 21. I listened to Muslim Girls Making Change, a collective of high school-age women in Vermont who use spoken word to tackle everything from pride in wearing their hijab to having their academic success measured by the color of their skin. To the woman near me who said this was her first political demonstration but she is so worried for her granddaughter’s future that she will continue to call, write, and march. To a little girl who was next to us inside a taco shop as we warmed up after the march and said “Resist” as she looked at us with a big smile on her face.

Many of us are seeking answers, desiring certainty, and wanting clarity. And the beautiful thing is people are not waiting for someone else to provide it to them. Without needing to be told, we are facing this existential threat together and determined to come out stronger. We are the ones we have been waiting for. Our leaders are simply hoping to catch up. History may eventually assign credit, charismatic and eloquent leaders may emerge, but this is the story of a faceless and nameless collective of people empowering one another with tools, information, and connectivity to make sweeping change. The Women’s March is not an isolated experience, but a watershed moment where the invisible thread that ties our growing movement together becomes visible. This is the beginning of something bigger. This is the rise of the network.

Networks are not inherently good or bad. Actors can take advantage of communication channels and connective tissue to nourish and strengthen bonds or to engage in destruction on a more massive, rapid scale. Social media, for example, can be used to engage in a simultaneous demonstration of political dissent like with the Black Lives Matter movement or it can be used to spread false narratives and dangerous misinformation. So the question is what role will each of us play individually, in our organizations, and as a larger collective to shape our networks into a force for good? There is deep wisdom in taking nothing personally, gathering ourselves, and moving forward in a sacred and celebratory way.

Give Everything Selflessly

If we are to take nothing personally, we must be ready to give everything selflessly. It may seem counterintuitive, then, to put your ego on the line as a means to this end. But I am here to tell you that stepping up to seek a role in appointed or elected office is a radical act in this moment. When we shy away from the conflict, challenge, and sacrifice of serving in the public sphere, we have let ourselves take things too personally. We have ceded these spaces to those who have the ego and drive to be someone, rather than those who have the will and determination to do something. Do not be afraid of the outcome – it is the doing that matters.

So many women expressed being deeply and profoundly moved by casting their vote for a female candidate in the November election. And then came the deep shock and disappointment of having that dream dissolve. Many asked what they should tell their children, especially their daughters, about a nation that has yet to shatter the glass ceiling in the year 2016. We communicate much more in deed than in word by running for office ourselves. We will only shatter that glass ceiling by rebuilding the foundation on which we stand.

Gather Yourselves, Be Each Other’s Keepers

This is a time to be in authentic relationship with one another. Spread truth, look into the eyes of your neighbors, invest time and resources locally. Now is the time to take care of your health and that of your family, start a reading group, go to a community meeting, build capacity in your schools, influence state and local decision-making.

We may feel despair about who is making decisions at the national level, and those decisions do have a real impact. They could mean loss of a visa for a refugee facing life and death, lack of access to reproductive health care for a young woman, or the destruction of the land and water for an indigenous community. But doing what you can, where you can, when you can could also mean a life is turned around, a hand is extended, a connection is made in way that adds value in this world.

Celebrate This Moment of Being Alive, Aware, and Awake

Many of us are going to bed and waking up despairing and defeated. We feel too exhausted to turn on the news and guilty for missing it. I am reminded myself of the Buddhist teaching of “The Second Arrow.” When we experience a painful or difficult emotion, we layer on judgement, criticism, and blame. Essentially, we react to being shot with one arrow by shooting ourselves with another. This will not help us on our journey.

We can instead be grateful to live in this time when our strength, courage, and the very fiber of our being is tested. There is not work and struggle, but duty and honor in what we do. It is sacred and revelatory because we are doing it together. There will be more marches, more calls to action, more victories and setbacks. We will remember these moments, where we were, who we were, how we made a difference. And those who come after us will remember, too.

---

Kesha Ram, Interim Director of Organizational Development

Kesha became a student of what makes a community whole growing up in her Indian immigrant father and Jewish American mother’s Irish pub in Santa Monica, California. Her adolescent activism in Los Angeles was divided between environmental protection and social justice until she met Van Jones, then Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and she began to see the “light at the crossroads” between the two movements.

She sought cleaner air, a more human-scale community, and a new adventure when she moved across the country to attend the University of Vermont. There, she began exploring environmental injustice faced by Vermont communities, which translated beyond her thesis work into a successful run for the state legislature at the age of 22. She served in the Vermont House of Representatives for eight years championing civil rights, tribal recognition, community-based land use planning, and protections for victims of domestic and sexual violence. In addition to her legislative service, she has worked as the Legal Director of Steps to End Domestic Violence and the Civic Engagement Director for the City of Burlington.

Kesha has served on the board of the Center for Whole Communities for six years before working as Interim Director of Organizational Leadership. She sees this new role as a way to uplift care, connection, and celebration for the organization in a critical juncture for its growth and expansion.

We have fought hard and long for integration…But I’ve come to believe we’re integrating into a burning house…. Let us not stand by and let the house burn.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

[I]f the Masters house caught on fire, the House Negro would try to put the fire out. On the other hand…the Field Negro would pray for a strong wind to come along.

Malcolm X

Exactly one year ago, I gave an MLK address titled, “Make America Great Again for Whom?” The title, obviously a play on Trump’s campaign slogan, begs questions as old as the country itself—namely: which America do you experience? Is your America a meritocracy, wherein hard work alone shapes the destiny of citizens? Or, is your America a kleptocracy, wherein the elite grow wealthy by gorging on the productivity of the proletariat? Is America a “city upon a hill,” protecting freedom and democracy all over the world? Or, is America a global police force, simply promoting its political interests?

According to King, America was “both/and.” King constantly evolved until his assassination. While he continued to address geo-specific inequities, (like the Montgomery bus boycott), the interconnected nature of injustice became increasingly apparent to him—forcing him toward a more global/humanist perspective. From city to city, King came face to face with America’s racist DNA—the hardwired, pervasive, predisposition toward disdain for even the idea of equity among all citizens. He eventually understood that white supremacy was bigger than the policies which maintained it. White supremacy requires inequity because inequity fuels faith in the supremacy. Inequity therefore provides both the “substance of things hoped for” and the “evidence of things unseen.”

The insidiousness of white supremacy allows “good” white people, to enjoy the fruits of their privilege by disavowing, but never organizing to dismantle overt white supremacists. Therefore, the racial pendulum continues to swing. American history is a history of such swings. King thus noted “the arc of the moral universe is long but bends toward justice.” I’m not sure what MLK envisioned, but my arc is composed entirely of double helixes—spirals upon spirals—replicating important, progressive evolutions over the course of time, but not without the duplication of sickness, as we are called to revisit less than stellar themes along the way. The process is slow and sloppy, and there are always innumerable casualties in the process.

What makes King so quintessentially American was his faith in the founding documents, the power of the moral arc, and the power of standing on the “right side” of history. No matter what he experienced, he forever called upon America to live up to its creeds. King loved the idea of America. Like so many before him (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, William Apess, Frederick Douglass), he used the language of the founders to levy charges against those sworn to uphold the constitution:

“All we say to America is, be true to what you said on paper. If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country…. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn’t committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”

As we witness the transition from Obama’s administration into Trump’s, this year’s MLK observance feels unique to me. In many respects, Obama shares MLK’s belief in America’s movement along the moral arc and articulates as much on multiple occasions. In his final presidential address, for instance, Obama argues that while America’s founding notions are “self-evident,” they “have never been self-executing.” It is only, “through the instrument of our democracy,” that “we the people can form a more perfect union.” Trump, by contrast, assures his supporters that “I will give you everything. I will give you what you’ve been looking for for 50 years. I’m the only one.” These two men therefore ascribe to entirely different versions of America’s democratic function. And the spiral continues.

Let’s be clear. The long-view can be a convenient one. As we strive towards “a more perfect union,” millions of people will continue to be trampled in the process. Some lives will be ruined while others will be lost altogether. Assurances that things are “improving” will rightfully fall on the deaf ears of those who succumb to our slow, stuttering, stampede toward perfection. As Ta-Nehisi Coates, reminds us, most of the people in any given time period, don’t “ask to be foot stones in your road…whenever someone dies, it’s the end of their personal universe.” He reads the “moral arc” argument as dismissive—a tool to “hand-wave away the deaths that I believe will come as a result of this election,” while noting that he “just can’t do it.”

While I don’t personally share his view, I empathize with it. I suspect that many of us will ceaselessly slide along the spectrum of hope and hopelessness—day to day, and moment to moment. Some of us will be sent flying off the pendulum—losing our grip as it swings back the other way. And for too many of us, the double helix that is our moral arc will replicate the morally cancerous—choking off any semblance of optimism.

As we move into America’s next chapter, let us heed the invitation to hold “the both/and.” Let us hold Malcolm’s clarion call for ridding ourselves of that which is unhealthy, even as we hold King’s unyielding call for accountability. When we encounter the optimistic among us, let us be inspired or be silent. Let us not embrace the occupation of spreading hopelessness under the guise of “realism.” Likewise, as we encounter the exhausted and defeated among us, let us not meet their grief with empty platitudes of better days ahead—but instead, create a safe space for their grief to simply exist. With so much uncertainty ahead, one thing is clear. The better we are at navigating these differences together, the more likely we are to see each other through to the other side.

---

Delma Thomas-Jackson is a CWC trainer and facilitator, activist, writer, counselor, and lecturer whose research covers a variety of issues including: American pop-culture, Islamophobia in America and abroad, Hip-Hop in the context of a Black musical legacy, sexism and media, white identity, America’s love affair with violence, African Americans and history of health care, and African Americans in the context of US housing policy. In 1999, Delma traveled to the Netherlands to explore the Dutch role in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. He returned in 2014 to explore migration and immigration patterns across Western Europe as well as European racialized pop-culture and its impact on Afro-Dutch identity.

MLK painting by Derek Russell http://www.derekrussellartist.com/

Whole Thinking in Practice Oct. 14-19 2016 in California

Apply here!

For over 10 years, Center for Whole Communities has equipped individuals and organizations with the courage, creativity, and resilience required to address some of the most complex social and environmental issues of our time.

We have found that the most effective way for people to learn and practice these transformational leadership skills is in the context of relationships – with other visionaries whose different perspectives can help us see new possibilities, and with the land, which can replenish and teach us in ways that are both tangible and mysterious.

Whole Thinking in Practice is an opportunity to spend six days in the company of other activists, artists, visionaries, changemakers, and leaders working on the front lines of environmental and social change while also nurturing yourself, slowing down, and replenishing amidst 600 beautiful acres of northern California hills.

• Participants can expect to:
• Re-think their work together in terms of whole systems and in terms of addressing root causes as opposed to symptoms;
• Initiate value-based inquiries to better understand and communicate the values that hold them together and inform better strategies and tactics;
• Explore the roles of race, class, power, and privilege in their work, and how to address injustices;
• Rejuvenate their strength and wisdom through nurturing, reflective, and creative practices that open the door for more authentic relationships, deeper dialogue, and new ways of leading.

Apply here!

For more info please visit: wholecommunities.org/whole-measures

Questions? Email Melanie Katz at Melanie [at] wholecommunities.org

Updated: Save The Date!

Here’s your opportunity to spend 6 days in the company of other activists, artists, visionaries, changemakers and leaders working on the front lines of environmental and social change.

6 days to slow down, reconnect, re-inspire and nurture yourself within 600 beautiful acres of northern California hills.

6 days to immerse yourself in the leadership capacities most needed during this age of rapid growth and complexity, skills like building relationships across difference, storytelling, awareness practice and dialogue, and connection to place.

For over 10 years, the Center for Whole Communities has been equipping individuals and organizations with the creativity, courage, and resilience needed to address some of the greatest challenges facing our planet.

Cultural transition isn’t always easy but it can be fun! Join us in a rich exploration geared at expanding our horizons while also centering wellness.

I am really grateful for the depth and quality of the people I got to meet and spend time with on the retreat. I learned from each of them – from the ways they work in the world, and the ways they shared themselves and their experience. The place was really powerful for me. The land felt like a huge part of the retreat, almost another participant/being in the dialogue and the space… Being able to appreciate the land, sky, outdoor kitchen, coffee among these great folks, but in silence was a great experience for me, and starting each day with yoga practice was grounding and wonderful.

2015 Whole Thinking Retreat Participant

Stay tuned for more information.