Homework: Finding Freedom

I've been taking a class called Finding Freedom. It's an anti-racist workshop for white women about confronting, understanding and transforming our roles within the structures of white supremacy.

One of our homeworks this week is to reflect on these words by organizer and liberation-seeker Mary Hooks:

 “To avenge the suffering of our ancestors, to earn the respect of future generations, and to be transformed in the service of the work. Let’s get free ya’ll!"

and to come up with our own call to action. Here is mine so far:


To banish the shame sown by our forefathers and reaped by every generation since;

To be accountable for harm we've caused or allowed, while refusing to be victimized by our shame;

To repair the harms that have been caused against our will but in our name; 

To leave behind our mythical innocence in the name of truth;

To reject the hollow niceties of false nurturing and embrace compassion with one hand and accountability with the other;

To cure ourselves of the virus that causes us to hate and misunderstand others and also ourselves. We didn't create it. But we are responsible for it.

To harvest the fruits of equity, radical love, transformation;

To manifest the change we wish to see in the world: a truer, bolder version of justice for all.

To connect all of us who have been banished from each other's love and dissolve the barriers between us;

To see and know and understand a more complete humanity. And in doing so, become more completely human.

To claim the power and potential within each of us. 

We fight in order to find freedom: our's and everyone's, interconnected. We must simultaneously vanquish and heal. Our destiny is the same. 



Comments

  1. Oscar LeGroucheOctober 21, 2021 at 8:43 AM

    I find that I am without words to respond here. In one homework assignment, you have outlined the thinking of a lifetime and the work of a lifetime - one very much worth living. I will continue to think about this and perhaps find the words.

    ReplyDelete

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