This Week's Opening Thought: April 10, 2023

This week’s opening thought to any of us who want to be viewed as “allies,” “accomplices,” or decent people: the moment you believe that there is no learning and listening left to do is when you become a liability to those communities you keep claiming you want to support and elevate.

Suppose you’re closed off to learning, unlearning, re-learning, and re-envisioning what you’ve been told is the right way to learn by the white supremacist concept of education you were subjected to in your formative years. If that’s the case, you will be another contributor to the problems those you claim you want to help have been trying to overcome for generations.

Suppose you’re unwilling to hear new perspectives from younger generations. Suppose you’re reluctant to hear experience-driven views from generations living and doing this work before yours. If that’s the case, you will be another person contributing to silencing communities that are historically and systemically held down and often rendered invisible.

Suppose you’re unwilling to be called in or out for your words and actions. Suppose your response to being called in or out is not to hear what is being shared but to go on the defensive. If that’s the case, you are as much of a danger to those you claim you want to support and elevate as the rest of the world around them that is intent on harming them.

Do you like considering yourself a decent person who helps others? Well, decent people spend their lives listening and learning from everyone they meet who feels safer and braver enough to share their insights and experiences with them. Then decent people take what they’ve learned and heard, process it, pay people for their time and emotional labor in human ways, then apply their learning to themselves to improve and push others who share their power and positionality to do the same.

There’s no half-assing learning and listening, especially not when people’s lives and safety are in constant danger.