This year I find my self being reminded of the fall of Ferdinand Marcos in the mid-1980s and LA Rebellion in the early 1990s when I’ve been a reluctant witness to the ghastly things people choose to do to each other.
Back then, I remember only feeling fear and confusion. Tonight, I add ‘grief’ to the mix of feelings I have as I process what’s happening in the U.S.
My grief feels different from mourning, and weighs heavier than exasperated idealism. This grief feels threatening; it interrogates.
It problematizes my core belief in our collective ability to behave in a more enlightened way in a time of turmoil, such as this, when we face off with racial hatred rearing its ugly head at home.
It turns a disapproving eye toward those of us who treat hard-earned education like a medal we win, but only display in its case, instead of using it as the upgrade that improves our thinking, transforms our discourse, and guides our deeds.
This type of grief asks:
– where to find the critical thinking adults to guide a truthful, probing discussion in service of unlocking breakthrough?
– why we easily retreat into our tribes, instead of opening up more constructive ways to understand a world more gray than black-and-white?
Too many of the things we now think and say about each other have — in the past and in other places — allowed brutal dictators to grab state power and fueled neighborhoods to burn.
Surely we are better than this.
I hope the day is still early and that sooner than later the dialogue we should be having on domestic terrorism, police violence, and structural racism can still be had.
To my social work colleagues old and new, our profession has something good to offer as we find our way. Keep using your professional perspective to help enlighten your personal networks. Remember the matrix of domination from CRT, for example.
If enough of us model critical thinking — if a courageous number of us resist reacting and succumbing to the anger that comes easy — we can, at least, model among our friends how to think more deeply and in a more solution-focused way. Parroting dishonest ideas and old excuses leads to dead ends, not breakthroughs; only critical thought does that.
FeudArt 