I struggle with the concept of activism. Am I just one sitting on my ass waiting for the world to change? I complain about those people a lot and there are certainly days when I am. But if I am not out their yelling on the streets, am I a sell out? Can I see myself as a contributor to the world? I think so…I don’t know that one’s activism has to be loud: Mine certainly expresses itself in quieter ways.
I suck at attending protests and really engaging, partly its a belief that protests don’t really change much in today’s world. People are kind of stuck in their ways and angry about everything and yelling all the time. Protests are necessary so that politicians know what people are actually angry about and when a protest is focused, it can actually cause change.
For me the real activism comes from the act local–think global concept. I try to at least know a lot of different kinds of people and engage with those folks in contexts that are comfortable for them. Now they don’t have to all be my friends, but at a minimum we can break bread or had a beverage in our local watering whole. This concept really solidified for me after meeting Emily Scott who with others started a dinner church called St. Lydia’s. I was like, “OF COURSE.” What I want to know is your story, tell you mine, and to pass the truth of our tales to places where that truth hasn’t been spoken. The goal is not to objectify or engage in an oppression pissing match, but an opportunity to experience another perspective.
In grad school I had a professor who gave me the poem “this bridge“. It’s from the book “the bridge cross my back” that includes a number of essays by radical women of color. A part of me is resentful for being this bridge and there is another part that wonders if this is not everyone’s work. So instead of just being the bridge for those of privilege to voyeur into oppressed people’s experiences; there might be an opportunity for multiple bridges to be built across communities of difference. If we can build enough bridges, then none of us have to drown. And I hope that our building of bridges allows future generations to not have to be so purposeful, but rather are more natural in their experience of authentic, peace based relationships with those that don’t look like them or grow up in their neighborhood.
All this to say that the conversation below was posted a little while back, but after hearing the podcast from “Tell Me More” I just felt my spirit say: “and that is my ministry:To figure out how to bridge gaps“
And this conversation outlines what I think is needed today.
MARTIN: Well, before you go, Anand, the implicit message of your piece is that there are lessons to be learned, particularly by the U.S. from the example set by, particularly, Brazil, which has had a lot of these factors. I mean, we didn’t talk about race, but you know, racial division is certainly a part of life in Brazil, you know, grotesque economic inequality, sluggish growth, you know, debt and so forth.
And you talked about the need for people to sort of move past their ideologies and embrace different points of view and be pragmatic and fact driven about the economy and there’s an implicit criticism here of the U.S. that, you know, the U.S. should do this.
You know, President Obama said during the campaign, famously, in this exchange with – you remember Joe the plumber. He said, look, I think things work best when we spread the wealth around a little bit and then that became something that his political opponents used to bludgeon him with. He’s still trying to kind of maintain this point of view in kind of reaching out across the aisle to the point where members of his own political party are criticizing him.
What do you think, based on your reporting, not just in Brazil, but also in India – what does it take to break that gridlock? Is it a powerful personality? Is it, what, people from the business community reaching out? What is it? Is it people outside of government demanding that they do so? What is it?
GIRIDHARADAS: Let me take a moment to kind of make the implicit point explicit and you could talk about what leaders need to do, but I’m going to skip that because I don’t really have much hope in them right, at least.
Let’s take a moment to ask your listeners, who are educated, thoughtful people, to pause the blame on Washington, who deserves to be blamed, but let’s just put that on pause and ask each of ourselves in what way we might need to get over ourselves.
What can each of us do to get out of this hole? What ideas that we’ve clung onto for 40 years can we accept are no longer valid in light of new realities? What principles can we let go of? What idea from the other side, even within our own family debates, can we say have some sense?
And we need to look around and say, whether it’s by working harder; whether it’s by being better parents who, you know, unplug the video games; whether it’s any number of things that actually the government has no control over; whether we are living up to what we need to do to get this country out of what is a very, very deep hole right now.
MARTIN: OK. So I’m going to put the question to you. What are you doing to get over yourself?
GIRIDHARADAS: That’s a great question. I’m, you know, sitting on NPR. No. I think, for me, it’s a question of – I’ve spent a lot of time this year traveling to parts of this country. You know, I live on the East Coast. I live in places where, although I don’t take public stands, I’m surrounded by liberals and I’ve spent a lot of time in this country talking to people who have very different views than the people I live around and trying to see kind of what’s in common beneath those conversations.
And you know what? There’s a lot in common. It requires some intelligent reframing to make people see commonalities that they don’t otherwise see. To me, the Tea Party and the Occupy movement are, in many ways, saying the same thing, but it requires a bit of imagination to get people to see that.
Pursuing Call 