Roots of injustice
This is how my friend, Ronnie James, of Des Moines Mutual Aid, puts it:
I’m of the firm opinion that a system that was built by stolen bodies on stolen land for the benefit of a few is a system that is not repairable. It is operating as designed, and small changes (which are the result of huge efforts) to lessen the blow on those it was not designed for are merely half measures that can’t ever fully succeed.
So the question is now, where do we go from here? Do we continue to make incremental changes while the wealthy hoard more wealth and the climate crisis deepens, or do we do something drastic that has never been done before? Can we envision and create a world where a class war from above isn’t a reality anymore?”
Ronnie James
This diagram I’ve been working on visualizes what Ronnie says. Under the WHITE column, the consequences of the concepts of property (land), colonialism and capitalism are the root causes of injustices and environmental devastation.
Those of us who are White and make enough money to live on are the fortunate ones in this country. But that wealth and privilege is rooted in injustice. And it is that wealth and privilege that is under attack from the Federal administration.
As Scott Miller says, “Quakers will only be truly prophetic when they risk a great deal of their accumulated privilege and access to wealth…Any attempt to change a system while benefiting and protecting the benefits received from the system reinforces the system.”
System Collapse
The rise of authoritarianism, symbolized by Trump, is accelerating the collapse of our political, economic and social systems. The disaster of Gaza and the international solidarity with Palestinians has destroyed any illusion of this country’s moral standing in the world.
Rapidly increasing environmental collapse is overwhelming those impacted, and the resources available to respond.
How to Respond
In my diagram above, the solid vertical red bar represents the barriers to change: failing and corrupt institutions, authoritarianism and environmental chaos.
Some of the ways we can respond to this collapse include Mutual Aid, LANDBACK, abolition of police and prisons, Black liberation, conservation, building coalitions, and spirituality.
I know some of these things appear threatening to many people. But when you dig beneath the surface of something like “abolition” you will find a lot of work has been and continues to be done by those working on just solutions to the problem. Abolishing police and prisons, for example, require communities to develop ways to protect their safety and provide restorative justice. And will be safer than the current law enforcement system.
Will you cross the barrier in the diagram and work for systems to bring about justice?
“Quakers will only be truly prophetic when they risk a great deal of their accumulated privilege and access to wealth. Prophets cannot have a stake in maintaining the status quo. Quakers as much as anyone not only refuse to reject their white privilege, they fail to reject the benefits they receive from institutionalized racism, trying to make an unjust economy and institutionalized racism and patriarch more fair and equitable in its ability to exploit. One can not simultaneously attack racist and patriarchal institutions and benefit from them at the same time without becoming more reliant upon the benefits and further entrenching the system. Liberalism at its laziest.”
Any attempt to change a system while benefiting and protecting the benefits received from the system reinforces the system.
Scott Miller
The following is from Grace Lee Boggs’, The Next American Revolution:
The next American Revolution, at this stage in our history, is not principally about jobs or health insurance or making it possible for more people to realize the American Dream of upward mobility. It is about acknowledging that we Americans have enjoyed middle-class comforts at the expense of other peoples all over the world. It is about living the kind of lives that will not only slow down global warming but also end the galloping inequality both inside this country and between the Global North and the Global South. It is about creating a new American Dream whose goal is a higher Humanity instead of the higher standard of living dependent on Empire. It is about practicing a new, more active, global, and participatory concept of citizenship. It is about becoming the change we wish to see in the world.
The courage, commitment, and strategies required for this kind of revolution are very different from those required to storm the Winter Palace or the White House. Instead of viewing the U.S. people as masses to be mobilized in increasingly aggressive struggles for higher wages, better jobs, or guaranteed health care, we must have the courage to challenge ourselves to engage in activities that build a new and better world by improving the physical, psychological, political, and spiritual health of ourselves, our families, our communities, our cities, our world, and our planet.
Grace Lee Boggs
unflinching 