Alternative Editorial: Only Waking
What does it mean to be woke? This week was a reminder that for most of us, this can only ever be an aspiration. We are wired, all of us, into an unforgivable past that made us who we are, with the privileges we barely acknowledge.
That unforgiveable past includes—but is barely covered by—the enslavement of black people in order to build modernity as we know it. If we imagine that this can be left in the past, the events of this week remind us the crime is still present, amongst us, in us.
Black people are still oppressed by a culture that sees the colour of their skin as an issue, possibly a death warrant. Whatever colour of skin, we hold that past within Us. There is no escaping the murderous, racist culture we are part of.
This week we – all of us who participate in the mediated public sphere - appeared to move in the direction of more awareness and that must be welcomed. Even the haters – of every kind - will know that the wider world is paying attention to the reality for black people in white-constructed cultures. Something is shifting in our shared sense of what is real and what cannot be accepted any more.
But where do we go with this new awareness? Especially understanding that what we are experiencing now is still only the tremor of an earthquake yet to come? The murder of George Floyd is like a lightning bolt that suddenly draws attention to a problem that is ever-present. It shocks. But what if we could really be present to all the injustices occurring every day? The certainty that this would be overwhelming is still keeping us afraid to open our eyes, properly.
Living with privilege is like trying to lift a table while you are standing on it. Maybe the only way is to jump off the table, and stop lifting. No theory of change can beat the change each one of us can take on personally. Let’s challenge ourselves as if we are the society we are trying to change – because we are.
George Floyd’s last words were “I can’t breathe”. The atrocity of his murder, with the boot of a fake protector of the people on his neck, could not be ignored. We live in an age where images can be spread around the world in seconds, as long as someone with a camera understands it needs to be shared and enough people agree. That time is here.
It came at the very moment that many countries were coming out of the lockdown forced by the Coronavirus pandemic. It won’t escape many meme watchdogs that not being able to breathe is a common factor.
Stories of people – first only the vulnerable, but increasingly the young and strong too – being robbed of their breath were enough to send us all scurrying into our homes. Without too much persuasion, understanding that the lives of our family, friends, neighbours were on the line, we accepted the ruin of our economy. Yes, we did.
As we slowly move out of these restrictions – a move still highly debated, because we don’t want to risk peoples’ lives – we have been shown this ‘other’ truth. That we have tolerated the ever-present danger to the lives of black people, on the street right in front of our noses, over all this time. There is no “coming out of lock-down” for this experience and condition.
For those of us working on climate change and the ten-year window, there is a particular reckoning. We are grieving for the planet: Nature itself is starving of oxygen. We rise to ‘wake up the people’ to the plight that ‘our children’ will face down the line.
But are we ourselves awake to the plight that all those without the privilege of white skin are facing today, in the streets we occupy? In the question of ‘what can we do?’, our plans cannot ignore the constant role we might be playing in being their oppressors. If we do, we continue to embody the human condition – the disconnectedness - that is destroying the planet. Let’s own it.
Some reading this will feel oppressed - by this very message! Are white people (for starters) really being asked to spend the rest of their lives atoning for the ignorance of their ancestors? Do we now have to put racial equality at the top of our agenda and drop other massive issues below that?
Let’s look at that differently. This is not a zero-sum game. To give the right attention to the reality as we find it is not a betrayal of other issues. It’s a bigger understanding of the issue we are trying to tackle and where our agency lies. If we ‘other’ racism, believing it to be black peoples’ issue – something that we support from a distance – then we are asleep. It’s not dissimilar to believing the health of our body is an accident: there’s nothing we can do ourselves to improve our chances of flourishing.
To get some clarity on our own responsibility for our society – a society where black people are being prejudicially murdered every day – should be more empowering than less empowering for everyone. Again, it’s not unlike discovering the cause of an illness: now you can now get to work on that.
With this new awareness, you can check how you organise yourself, distribute your attention, give your power to others willingly. You can initiate conditions in which black lives not only matter in theory, but matter in practice. You can contribute actively to the design of everything you do.
It’s energising to see your society become more vital, as a result of the better and safer participation of the diversity that was previously hidden. Suddenly we are using twelve colours (rather than the six we were previously using) to draw our pictures, to imagine the future.
But well before that, we – by means of the institutions and enforcement that we fund and legitimate - can stop murdering black people.
To show solidarity, let’s give money, take the knee, seek out and promote those that need attention. These are the small and direct actions of a society in the process of waking up.
But to be a credible Alternative, we must go a step further and commit to doing the tough inner work that develops motivation and vision, so we can reinvent our societies. So we can build social and political architecture that safeguards – and ensures - the full participation of black people.
In the UK especially, we must find the way to reverse and compensate for our historic responsibility and the ongoing effects of colonialism and slavery. As one step towards that goal, we will always seek to promote the contributions of black people to our vision of the Alternative, without which we know we are so much less than we could be.
