Seeking Cultural Change Through Individual Change
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1:31 Cultural Tipping Point:
I think it’s plain to see that we are at a crossroads, culturally, and that there is an opportunity here for us to shift and change into a higher consciousness.
“We know that it only takes a small percentage of the population to make the changes that need to be made the same percentage of the population. Too often, however, in the past has sat on the sidelines, waiting for other people to make the difference waiting for some kind of a superhero or superpower to come up and say save the day.”
“And if we’ve learned anything, I hope that we have learned that there is no warrior coming to save us. That real life is not like the movies. There is no one person that is assigned to save the world and let the rest of us just go on living our life. It’s here, it’s now, change is upon us.”
This cultural Crossroads is inherently unclear comfortable, it’s supposed to be. There is no reason that we would shift or change our way of life or our beliefs. If change were comfortable.
5:04 Our Beliefs – the Analogy of a Chair
What is it that I believe? What is it that I take out with me into the world?
“Imagine that our beliefs were like a bag, like a Santa Claus bag, right? And every day we’re walking out into the world with this bag full of beliefs, and they shape our experiences before we even have a chance to experience things as they are.
“Staying curious, staying willing to shift and change is what makes us human. It’s what makes us alive, and it’s what makes us contributors in this society.”
“White people particularly have been conditioned against feeling uncomfortable. We’ve been told that we’re not strong enough to handle it, that there’s always a way out.”
“But as a spiritual seeker, as any kind of truth seeker, you have signed up for discomfort. You have to be willing to say I don’t know if anything I’ve ever believed is true.”
9:53 Truth in Discomfort
“The truth is not always in some pie-in-the-sky belief set or way of life. Really, the truth is found in humanity. It’s found in our discomfort. It’s found in our efforts and our toiling and our confusion.”
“Doing the hard work should be a priority. Discomfort is a grand opportunity for change and growth. These things don’t come easily and they don’t simply arrive at our doorstep. We don’t just become wiser as we grow older. It has to be a conscious choice.”
13:42 Bypasses
“There are ways around the pain and some of us who are really creative have found those bypasses many times over. And yet what happens we find ourselves back at another Crossroads at another point where we must make a decision.
We can’t now avert our gaze. In fact, now, we need to maybe just double down a little bit more on our efforts, on our anger, on our frustration on our letter writing on our donation, whatever it is that you’re doing to make a difference.
We have already as a country taken so many shortcuts around this issue with police brutality against black people.”
“Change begins with us recognizing that it is uncomfortable and doing it anyway, which goes against everything that we’ve ever been taught about discomfort.”
“This is our time. This is our opportunity. There is no savior coming to change everything for us and then just set us up like chess pieces in our new home. We are the change so be a part of the change, embrace the change, celebrate the change, encourage the change, and in the words of Gandhi, Be the change.
A quote by Roxane Gay in a recent article in The New York Times.
“Eventually, doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait, despite the futility of hope, for a cure for racism. We will live with the knowledge that a hashtag is not a vaccine for white supremacy. We live with the knowledge that, still, no one is coming to save us. The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free.”
