July
In our last newsletter (June), I discussed our upcoming 10-week leadership training which will take place in September - November (2020). I shared the first part of the series, Confronting Our Fears, and in this newsletter, I will be exploring the second part, Daring.
I will be expanding on these ideas for our training by discussing how they translate into practice in more detail. Based on the training, I plan to write a book so I will be sharing my creative process, not the end product which is exciting because I will get an opportunity to receive constructive feedback from everyone involved in the project.
The goal is to redefine leadership for those who have or are wanting to engage their communities more effectively.
Daring
“Time to create yourself.”
Teresa Mendoza, Queen of the South, Season 2, Episode 6
If we just accept that life happens since we have very little control in this world, then you might think that we should resign ourselves to reality, to the injustices in the world. How wonderful would it be if we all had the privilege of shutting out the world, of being able to pack up our bags and run off to a monastery or mountain where we could just escape and let the world run amok. Life is so we should let it be. On the contrary, accepting that we will be disappointed, rejected, fail, suffer, and die means that we need to let go of our expectations of what life should be which is usually based on others’ standards, and focus of what it can be. We need to have the wisdom to differentiate between what is and what it can be. What do I mean? I think most of us in the US have heard the serenity prayer:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Richard Niebuhr
If we believe that life is inevitable, that we cannot control the outcome with our worrying and fussing, the question is what can we change? For the longest time when I was young, I did not believe that we could change traditions about gender roles and sexuality, institutions that discriminate against non-white people, systems that favor white supremacy. So I felt helpless and by my passivity, perpetuated the very structure which oppressed not only me but all marginalized communities. I accepted what is because I believed they were “things I cannot change.”
But this brings us to the famous for words of Angela Davis:
I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.
Angela Davis is speaking from a place where society has been forcing people to accept the realities of systemic racism, in which black people were and are being commodified for the benefit of white people. The system has been inculcated over many generations, embedded in not only the institutions but the very culture, thought, and consciousness of America, and therefore seemed immutable. As Richard Wright reflected through his famous character, Bigger Thomas (Native Son), whiteness felt like the natural order of the world, divinely ordained by God. How can we change what is ‘natural’ or ‘divinely ordained’? But how would we have known if we were and are being brainwashed to believe in our familial, educational, religious, governmental institutions that white supremacy is ‘natural?’
This is where we think wisdom should come in but more than wisdom gained from education, awareness, and experience, I ultimately believe that we as humans have an inner awareness, a collective consciousness in which we know that when people are being oppressed, it is not natural by any definition, but unnatural. And rising against what the institutions have tried to inculcate in our bodies and minds takes courage, a daring that can and will dismantle the systems which tries to keep all of us as slaves. Oppression is NOT what life is but what life shouldn’t be.
So why do I speak of daring when we insist on changing what we once thought was ‘natural’ order of things? Dare is a verb based on the word, durran, which means to be bold enough, to have courage. And courage is a noun based on the French word, corage (“heart”) which is quite significant because in the Medieval ages, the heart was the seat of “emotions, consciousness, and the intellect.” In contemporary society, we are under the impression that ‘heart’ is primarily the seat of emotions and therefore irrational which supposedly is in tension with our ability to logically evaluate a situation. But emotions are not irrational; it is actually extremely important in how we approach a situation because it works with our minds. So for example, a person becomes angry at a situation, not because it is working against our minds but because our minds have assessed the situation to be worthy of our anger. And the reason why our minds come to this awareness is because of our consciousness. They all work together to impel us to action.
We can only change (‘to make different’) if we dare to challenge the ‘what is’ of our system, the institutions. If we are afraid of hurting, disappointing, failing people; if we are afraid of losing our financial security, our control, our lives, then we are succumbing not to courage but to fear. The more we think we have to lose, the more we are afraid of daring. Let me give you an example, the more privileges we have in this world, the more we do not want to challenge the system. Why would I want to change the very institutions which give me privileges? I would not want to change the educational system if I thrive within the very walls of the classroom. I would hate diversity if I am white and would lessen my opportunity to get a job. I would dare not touch the religious institutions that embrace and support my lifestyle. And I will be honest, ever since I personally got involved in stocks, I’ve come to resent socio-political events that hurt my pocket. I don’t want any changes, even if they are good for our communities, if I feel that they will adversely affect my finances.
So in my experience, the most daring people are the ones who have nothing to lose because we have been marginalized. We don’t have institutional privileges so for us changes will eventually benefit us. Yet we are not talking about us coming into millions of dollars but basic benefits that many of us in the US take for granted - not being stopped on the streets by cops, getting clean water, not being considered foreigner/immigrant, being able to marry, being able to vote, etc. If this is the case, then we could argue that change is ultimately a selfish act. Is it selfish to want to be treated with dignity? If you believe that wanting dignity, wanting to be treated as a human being, wanting to be seen as a child of God is selfish? Then, yes. But what would that make those who have many privileges? Greedy?
So wanting to change what I cannot accept because what is takes away from our collective humanity, I need to have courage, to act upon what my consciousness, my emotions, and my mind which tells me that what is is wrong and to fight against what is. That is the only way we can actualize what life can be.
In the USA Original television series, Queen of the South, Teresa lost everything except her life and even that had an expiration date. When she had absolutely nowhere to fall back on, whether it be her duplicitous boyfriend, vengeful ghosts, manipulative present boss, powerless friends, she crawled her way to the top not by following the rules, but by taking risks that put her life on the line. She had nothing to lose and nowhere to turn so she realized that she needed to create her own path. I am not encouraging people to start their own drug cartel where one would definitely make more money than in social activism, but we have to dive into our work like we have nothing to lose and in that mindset, can we come up with daring, creative solutions. Whereas her goal is to have power to create a drug empire, we should want power to influence our communities to break the cycle of what is.
Samantha Joo
Founder ad Executive Director
June 30, 2020