Standing Together for Love
We each have our tools and resources. One of mine is writing. I set out to write…
With the struggle and historic pain of Black Americans exposed so profoundly and anew in all of its horror the last couple weeks, we decry the murder and oppression of unarmed Black people and demand the system be changed. And, we say the names of innocent people who died: Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. These are the people whose stories we’ve come to know recently, but there are others. So many others. It is important to acknowledge their humanity, to know their stories, and to fully grasp the repeated and ongoing injustice in how their lives were taken. It is not OK to be silent. There is no neutral stance.
I penned a plea for all of us who benefit from the status quo in the US to dismantle this system that routinely slaughters and holds in terror a portion of the population. These are our neighbors, classmates, leaders, colleagues, team members, friends, and their loved ones, our fellow humans.
I wrote a mountain of words but then deleted them as inadequate, rewrote and edited. “I want to get this right. It’s important,” I reasoned.
Finally I heard a message, loud and clear, “Hold still. Be quiet and listen.”
So I did. I got quiet and listened. All weekend listening and waiting.
Here’s what I heard loud and clear.
#1: Just speak up. Do it imperfectly. When people are dying, perfection doesn’t matter. What matters is speaking up. So just speak or write. It can be plain and simple; it doesn’t matter right now. Call out for human dignity. Cry out for love. Stop worrying about it being good writing or even getting it all right. It won’t be, but being a great writer or being right isn’t the point.
The point is being a true ally by standing against the system that says I have the privilege of taking my time to be right and comfortable. I don’t have to be right and comfortable. I can be wrong and uncomfortable. My reluctance to be wrong and uncomfortable is part of the problem. When I am wrong and uncomfortable, someone else gets to be right, to be comfortable, to know, to teach, to be elevated. And I get to learn and be humble. That shifts power and puts others at the center.
Change must happen at the macro-level of policy, prosecution, national narrative, and leadership. But it also must happen at the micro-level, in our personal conduct and person to person day to day shifting how we interact with each other, making room for another’s dignity, perspectives, truth.
#2: Use what you do and what you have to help. A Human Workplace has a platform and practices that expand love and human dignity. Use these now to change the dominant system. Lives are at stake.
For the last two years, we have been in this. We held numerous gatherings in Olympia and Seattle on empathy, diversity, inclusion, outward mindset, the immigrant experience, the Black experience, and implicit bias, and we partnered on advancing trauma-informed work. Wise, powerful leaders and teachers, People of Color, co-hosted these gatherings where we listened and learned from them, cultivating understanding and compassion.
Our question has always been, “What’s the right next step that we can take?” And then we’d take those steps together.
So now, the question is the same, what is the right next step to take in our virtual Gatherings?
What I know is this: Black people continue to be killed and oppressed in this country as they try to go about their daily lives doing normal things. This injustice must stop! We hear clearly from many in the Black community and agree that it is not their problem to solve. This is the responsibility of people who are not Black, particularly White people or those who benefit from the dominant culture to fix this problem.
We in the Human Workplace community who are White or who benefit from this culture have an obligation to do this work and be part of the solution. This is not to “center Whiteness” nor to exclude anyone. It is instead to take responsibility for the work that we must do. It is necessary to begin to take actions now, to help now, and to do long term work to bring personal and collective change. This will come when we reflect, own, learn, realize, grieve, sit with, internalize, integrate and take informed actions.
So the right next thing for us to do is this: Hold Virtual Gatherings focused on the responsibility of White folks to grapple with and solve our terrible problem.
All are welcome to join us on June 4th at 1-2:30 pm Pacific Time to Stand Together for Love.
In this first gathering of many, we will grapple with what is clear: That those who benefit from this culture cannot be silent anymore and it is on us to bring change. We will connect with each other, begin to process what we are seeing, acknowledge our feelings, and identify immediate actions to take. And we will chart a longer journey of awareness of our biases, of the nature of the system, and of long-term actions we can take individually and collectively. This isn’t everything. It is surely incomplete and imperfect. But that’s OK. See #1 above. Please register today.
This is a long-term commitment we are making as an organization. We can’t be an organization that stands for love in the workplace and in the world and do any less.
A special note to our friends in the Black Community: You are welcome at these Gatherings, and, I recognize the Black Community is traumatized and grieving. When we gather, we are committed to practices of respect and care that do not cause any further trauma and that do not place any demands for educational or emotional labor on you. If you join and choose to speak, our fundamental rule is that we listen and believe. Period. But we understand that right now, it may be too much to join a mixed Gathering. Just know that you are always welcome, you’ll be respected, your wishes and words will be honored, and you are loved.
