A vision for 2021

I hope that you and yours are safe, and finding some peace and rejuvenation as 2020 becomes 2021.

For the past six months, I’ve been integrating Brené Brown’s two word check-ins at the beginning of meetings, and as I write this, I realize I’m feeling refreshed and still tired (OK, that was three words). Because, despite a week and a half (sort of) out of office, and a whole new month and year beginning, it’s not as if the facts and experiences of 2020—let alone the injustice of previous millennia—are over.

There is. so. much. work. for us to do. Personal, social, cultural, institutional, transformational work.

Of course, that would be true, no matter what kind of year 2020 has been.

And that’s the awesome part. It’s not whether we have more to do in 2021: that’s a given. It’s how we want to use this year, what progress we’re striving for.

So on this New Year’s Eve (or someday early in 2021, if you’re, I hope, ignoring emails right now) I’ll ask the question I’ve been asking for the past six months, inspired by the Iroquois Nation:

What’s your vision for justice in 2021… and beyond?

Because justice isn’t only the end of racism, homophobia, classism, transphobia, sexism, xenophobia, ableism… it’s the flourishing of the systems we imagine and build to take their place…

Because “the arc of the moral universe is long” (Parker; King, Jr.)…

Because “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time” (Ginsburg)…

Because we need to “dream a little before [we] think“ (Morrison)…

We need a vision to work toward, an aspiration to guide our efforts. So, this coming year… and in 5, 10, 20 years… and seven generations from now… what are people doing and experiencing? And if you’re seeing “more diverse” communities in the future, what have those communities done to deserve being more diverse? How have we designed for enduring, evolving, lived justice?

I’m going to go on a run now and ponder my own vision once more before this year concludes, and sign off with my gratitude to you for being part of Blink’s community.

And I should this, Bill Watterson’s final Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, reprinted in The Washington Post today. It made me smile and inspired this note.

Thank you, Bill Watterson and everyone else (that includes you) who inspired me this year.

I hope to see you in person, when we may, in 2021.

– Alison at Blink

Holiday wishes

I hope you and yours are having safe, healthy and love-filled holidays that you celebrate. That you are finding peace and rejuvenation as 2020 continues to surge ahead, even as it winds down.

And while I do mean happy your holidays, I also want to share this wish:

Because it made me laugh, and because yes, I actually do aspire to a post-white supremacy, equity-normed Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, solstice, solar and lunar new years and all of your holidays and holy days.

“Anyone can learn to help to make systems more racially just.”

– Professor Christine Sleeter

If you’ve ever wondered what ethnic studies is – and isn’t, if you don’t know what to say when people claim that teaching about identity is “divisive” and “counterproductive,” if you realize that that argument is a red herring, please check out Professor Sleeter’s statement “Yes to California’s Ethnic Studies Curriculum.”

She had me at “anyone can learn…” The point being, you have to learn, in order to help, and where else in school curricula is justice taught?

Quote of the day

“[‘Racist’] literally describes what a person is being in any given moment, based on what they are saying or not saying, doing or not doing.”

– Ibram Kendi

I think an easy misunderstanding of what Kendi is saying is that racism is just a bunch of individual behaviors that are easy to spot because they are so obviously, egregiously racist.

Actually, racism isn’t personal or individual in nature, so much as it is necessarily in enactment. Racism inhabits and is enacted by people because it’s a value system that requires us to carry it forward: to ingrain it in our institutional systems, social norms, and everyday practices and interactions with each other.

With that in mind, I read into Kendi’s quote:

“[‘Racist’] literally describes what a person is being in any given moment, based on what they are saying or not saying, doing or not doing [to perpetuate and further entrench not just inequality on the basis of race, but a system of inhumanity].”

The “gender card”

Responding to criticism about an op-ed suggesting that “Jill Biden should think about dropping the honorific [“Dr.”], which feels fraudulent, even comic,” Wall Street Journal editor Paul Gigot wrote, “There’s nothing like playing the race or gender card to stifle criticism.”

To be clear: when you dismiss the assertion that gender identity matters, that’s when you’re “playing” the gender “card.” The deck is stacked. The “game” wasn’t designed to include doctors (medical or PhDs) of all genders equally. (Doubt that? See the original op-ed, and Gigot’s doubling-down defense of it.)

So when you respond to criticism about sexism in a statement you made (or made under your editorial guidance) by using your privilege to make another statement dismissing your critics as just “playing a card,” instead of considering how (not whether) this is a valid point about the point you got to make, and how this dialogue can enrich–not threaten–what you may have presumed was your unilateral, unidirectional privilege to speak, you’ve just played the ultimate “gender card.”

So far, the Wall Street Journal has played its gender card twice.

The thing is: just as it’s not “playing” when you name systemic oppression, it’s not “playing” when you deny it. It’s real stakes, real lives, real loss for all – not just some – of us.

“This is ‘cancel culture’ for real.” – Today’s recommended reading

In today’s Washington Post column, Sally Jenkins clarifies “cancel culture.”

It is not “cancel culture” for Cleveland’s baseball team (which has decided to rename itself) to “quit [its] souveniring of people.”

Cancel culture is defining people as mascots in the first place.

It’s over-riding treaties and sovereignty agreements to build an oil pipeline.

It’s “superimposing… heroic White narratives” over the narratives, accomplishments and rights of Indigenous peoples.

While I recommend reading this quick and history-packed article, in case you don’t, I’m including wisdom that Jenkins quoted from Native American author and historian Vine Deloria Jr. (who wrote Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto):

“Before the white man can relate to others, he must forgo the pleasure of defining them.”

“The white man must learn to stop viewing history as a plot against himself.”

A lack of aspiration

No surprise, “Marin [County] dominates racial segregation rankings in UC study.” Lorenzo Morotti reports:

Since 1980, Marin has had a twofold increase in the level of segregation, according to the report.

The study focused on ranking municipalities by what it called “inter-municipal segregation” — or the “segregation of the residents from the larger region” — as opposed to “intra-municipal segregation,” or “the segregation of people between neighborhoods within the city.”

By that measure, the study ranked East Palo Alto first. Latino residents comprise 64.5% of the city’s population of 28,155.

Ross, with a population of 2,415, ranked second. White residents comprise 90.93% of the town.

Belvedere, with 2,068 residents, ranked a close third. White residents comprise 90.86% of the town.

In fourth place is Sausalito, with White residents comprising 87% of its population of 7,061. San Anselmo is fifth, with 86% of 12,336; Fairfax is seventh, with 85% of 7,441; and Mill Valley is ninth, with 85% of 13,903.

Towns and cities became racially homogenous through restrictive land-use policies like redlining and racial deed covenants, which barred non-White families from purchasing homes in certain areas. During World War II, Sausalito was a main shipyard for the war effort. Neighboring Marin City housed many Black shipyard workers, but they were barred from buying property elsewhere in the county after the war.

For the record, I live in Mill Valley, and am one of the 15% of residents who don’t identify as White. (I actually thought MV was Whiter than that based on my everyday experiences here, and maybe it is because UC’s Othering and Belonging Institute only has the most recent Census data, which is from 2010.)

I read this article, and then for some reason started to read the comments (which I generally try to avoid, no matter what site I’m on). They weren’t surprising: the all caps yelling about “WHITE GUILT,” the very active commenter who self-brands as a “MAGA” Trump supporter, the critiques of methodology, the anecdotal evidence supporting Marin’s racism (offered by a White friend of a Black person – on scanning, it doesn’t look like anyone who identifies as a person of color posted a comment), the assertion that “racial” means “Black,” the charge that UC should look to its own racism, the explanations for why Marin is predominantly White other than racism…

And what was entirely lacking was aspiration. Everyone’s just arguing in the pits. Defending, attacking, sparring, blaming… it was exhausting, so I stopped reading. I just wanted to know what the point was. Where were the facts, the disagreements and the discomfort going? I suspect nowhere. And there’s an insidious circularity to that. A performative see, we read the article, cited more facts, and…

And what? Instead of just bickering about who we are now, I’d like to know who we could be. What is our vision of Marin of 2030… 2050… 3000? Of Marin seven generations from now? Yes, we have to talk about history and systems and culture, but let’s get take the time to “dream a little before we think” (Toni Morrison). We need direction and hope toward which to harness all our learning and debate, our fear and anxiety, our fixation on how (nothing anyone suggests will work)… we can’t wait on a vision, but we should seed one and continue to cultivate it.

Unless really, all we wanted was to read and pontificate at each other. And maintain the status quo.