I hear this a lot, I want to change the world! I also regularly hear people complain about what is wrong with the world... but they aren't doing anything to fix it. I remember my frustration this summer over the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action... how mad everyone was, but honestly not only not doing anything to help fix it, but actually actively doing the things that created, continue, and cultivate the environment that allows those injustices to stand. It made me think...
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the world is changed by how you act.
Maybe a new mantra for me, or maybe a way that I share and engage with people. For years I mentioned how social media advocacy didn't get us anywhere, declaring on social media that you believe something doesn't help that thought become our reality. Yes I know believing in the right thing matters, it is the start, and that talking about those things is a foundation for progress, but if it stop at believing and discussing, we don't get anywhere. It requires action to create change.
I wrote a draft blog, called "Affirmative Reaction" days after the SCOTUS ruling. All my friends on social media were up in arms, and as predicted a month went by and everyone forgot. Here is what I penned then:
"If you are mad that affirmative action is gone, and posted about it from your fancy car parked next to your rich suburban neighborhood, and your kids went to private school and only had one minority friend… your self segregation helped cause the problem and perpetuate what required affirmative action in the first place.
Maybe move to and invest in a neighborhood that your parents fled, send your kids to the public schools your friends mock, and try to integrate this world instead of continuing to enjoy your segregated life that benefits you and blame a couple justices for why our communities are disadvantaged. Your actions, and thousands of similar ones, created the injustice that affirmative action sought to repair... so maybe we can repair the original injustice instead of blaming the removers of a system patch.
You can’t be part of and contribute to the problem and complain others hanve't solved it yet."
I didn't post it, once again, sharing those words maybe would not make a difference, and I didn't want to act like I was on a high horse about what I am doing. I guess I just want to continue to act, to volunteer with our struggling schools, to keep my kids in diverse public schools, find ways to invest in the neighborhoods that need it the most, etc.
Not even sure why I am posting this, I might not even share it to social media. I want to ask, what are we doing? How are we going to create progress?
Every day kids in my community go without, and I don't just mean food or shelter (which does happen), but I mean kids that honestly will have little to no opportunity, they will end up in a worse position than their parents and society will blame them... society won't blame the people who took the food out of their mouths, defunded their schools, and hired more police to keep them in line. They will grow up feeling like a failure... but they didn't fail, we failed them. We tripped them, laugh at them, and then tell them to get up and succeed like those who not only weren't tripped, but who got a head start.
I don't have the solutions, but if we don't address these root causes of issues we will continue to decay. If we look away from the ways we have helped create the problem and expect someone else to solve it... we will be lost forever.