Years ago I heard this poem by a 12 year old Black girl on the radio:
America the Beautiful,
Who are you beautiful for?
Or, as Langston Hughes put it in Let America be America:
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
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Very few of us want this state of things, but if we want to join with Mr. Langston’s commitment we’re going to have to dig a little deeper into our meditations on why it’s not better yet.
I’ve been reflecting on what privileges I am willing, and not willing, to give up. I’ll surrender social capital with my family and friends, am willing to be arrested, and even willing to be physically hurt. The line I’ve identified for myself is that I’m not willing to lose my home. It feels crappy to say out loud that there is a place beyond which I will not go as an ally in this work, but I’m pretty sure it’s better to own it so that the people I’m working with know how far they can trust me.
(Trust me, they know there is a limit. I’m just trying to be honest about mine.)
In that spirit I offer this disturbing game to identify the ways we hold on to privilege and never even notice. (Hint, will you deny your kids their maximum possible opportunities?)
Maybe someday we’ll be celebrating Interdependence Day instead of Independence Day. Then giving up some of what we each have so we all are better off will lead to a more satisfying answer to the little girl’s question.
Image: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-i1st_b_698388.html
Stone Soup NH 