Kimberly B. George. Feminist. Writer. Bridge Builder.

How to Change the World

I woke up this morning to the news that a friend of mine, Rev. John Helmiere, who is also a Yale Div grad, a faithful activist, a minister, a creative thinker, a loving visionary, a peacemaker, and a supporter of human rights and justice, was beaten by the police and arrested while protesting for workers’ rights in Seattle. Read his galvanizing story here.

Between learning of his situation, and following all week this preposterous bill that radically un-democratizes America, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on what is really at stake in this historical moment, and what we all can be doing to be part of significant change in our world and local communities. As John quotes in his article, “Not taking sides is effectively to weigh in on the side of the stronger” (quote attributed to the preacher/activist William Sloane Coffin).

I will be honest: I think things are going to get really serious in the coming months and years. Yes, we will be collectively working toward new tipping points for justice-making. But, as John’s story reminds me this morning, there will be hardships, pain, suffering, beatings, imprisonment. In response to my friend’s courageous actions yesterday, I wrote this list of 5 things we can be doing to prepare ourselves:

1. Practice meditation, prayer, singing, and centering. Why? Because in the coming years, as these movements for justice gain energy, so will the powers of greed and abuse work to resist your efforts of creativity and love. You might need to know how to stay calm in a jail cell, after being beaten, as my friend John experienced yesterday. For while Love will always ultimately be stronger than its opposition, it is also true that within American history, people who have stood for justice—think abolition, women’s suffrage, workers’ rights, and the Civil Rights movement—have always had to be prepared to receive imprisonment and physical violence (and even death to their earthly bodies), as they in turn sought non-violent forms of resistance. And, furthermore, let’s not forget that while police brutality is making headlines because of Occupy Wall St., communities of color in the U.S. have long endured police violence and false imprisonment and have long led resistances to such injustices. Prayer and meditation and singing together are skills that have historically helped sustain bodies, spirits, and communities as we work to transform such systemic evils. (I often think of this scene from Iron Jawed Angels, in part because I have read suffragist’s Alice Paul’s letters to her mom from jail describing the suffering of her hunger strikes.)

2. Think across systems. Think in the “in-betweens.” See the connections that are so often kept hidden from us, as you consider how economic injustice, racism, sexism, neo-colonialism, militarization of the U.S., homophobia, greed, and the destruction of the environment are interacting to create suffering. For instance, as inspired as I am by the above clip of Alice Paul, who helped to secure the vote for me— a white woman—she did not partner with the efforts of African American women, who would have to wait 45 more years to get the vote. (And, it’s worth pondering that the clip above uses an African American spiritual to inspire us with Alice Paul’s story of suffering—a bit of a theft, really, if you ask me, considering African American women’s activist efforts are made pretty invisible in the movie.) We have often heard the argument, “you can’t take on all issues.” Of course we can’t—but we can and must cultivate understanding the connections across multiple systems.

3. Honor your creativity. Writing, painting, dancing, and cooking can harness in you improvisational and intuitive modes of presence. Such skills will be necessary: for in these situations that seem so framed by the “either-or” (or “us” and “them”) dilemmas, it is your creativity that will help you find the forgotten 3^rd or 21^st or 56^th options. And it is your creativity that will help you not to be shaped by the unjust systems, even as you spend so much time resisting, thinking about, and deconstructing the systems. It is, after all, our ever-renewed imaginations that will help us envision, believe in, and create redemption on earth.

4. Cultivate presence. While our technologies are gifts to be harnessed, it is also true that the stimuli of our inboxes, Facebook updates, and streams of hyperlinks can impede us from being really present both with ourselves and with others. Our bodies and minds can literally become programmed by the influx of stimuli, such that we forget how to hold other modes of sustained attention and reflection. Amidst the kinds of creative, courageous acts that are so needed in our world, we also need to pair reflection with our actions—which means slowing down, pausing, noticing, wondering, being still and listening.

5. Consider your role. You are limited in mind, heart, and energy, and you should honor your limitations, and not try to be the world’s savior. You can even celebrate your smallness, as it frees you from the grandiose impulse to take on the world’s suffering, an impulse which will emotionally and psychologically crush you. (I’ve learned this lesson the hard way, I am afraid.) But— and this next part is very important— you must simultaneously recognize that you are also braver than you know, stronger than you realize, more creative than you’ve yet tapped into, and an indispensable part of this greater movement. The trick is to find your participation in the larger whole (like these fabulous art students I heard about this week).

Note #1: My professor Janet Ruffing, as well as writers Paulo Freire, Audre Lorde, and Martin Buber, as well as the author of the Gospel of Luke and the rabbi who taught the Sermon on the Mount, as well as the teachings of Emilie Townes in her class, Metaphors of Evil, as well as my friend and colleague Jason Craige Harris, as well as Jenny Blair who has helped to fund my writing and website, as well as my supportive family, have all influenced the ideas in this post, which are not mine, but have been born in community (though, I of course, take full responsibility for the limitations and flaws inevitably exhibited in my own writing and teaching).

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Article

Note to reader: This blog article is a bit outdated, in that I cite an event on the View from 3 weeks ago. (I wrote it, got busy with PhD applications, failed to send it off to an online magazine in a timely manner, and left it to collect dust.) But, since the critique I am making isn’t outdated, I decided to post this slightly-too-long-for-a-blog piece here anyways on my blog.

As a left-leaning feminist, it’s not everyday that I make this kind of pronouncement: Elisabeth Hasselbeck, conservative pundit over at the View, gets it right here folks, and everyone else sitting on that couch got it wrong. Really wrong.

Here’s what went down: Bill Maher, host of Real Time, was a recent guest on the View, and Hasselbeck demanded “accountability” regarding a comment he had made February 4th about the detention of CBS correspondent Lara Logan in Egypt. Maher had then joked on his HBS show: “New rule: now that Hosni Mubarak has released Lara Logan, he must put her intrepid hotness on a plane immediately. In exchange, we will send Elisabeth Hasselbeck.”

The joke about trading in women is offensive as-is, but to make matters worse for Maher’s comedy material, later on February 15th, CBS announced that Logan had suffered a horrific sexual assault while covering the protests in Egypt.

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The School

Executions in Texas cost 2.3 million dollars (might we start to ask who profits from death?). Private prison complexes make $72,000 from filling one bed for a year—and heads of those companies are currently hard at work lobbying for policies that increase racial profiling and arrests of Latino/as and African Americans. Want to learn more about our prison system? Listen to this fabulous talk—new at the The School— from Laura Markle Downton.

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How to Envision Justice

In response to my last post, Beth asked an important question regarding what can we do? How can we move forward from here? I have been thinking about this question a lot this week. And while I don’t have a “to do” list as an answer, I do have thoughts on some of the shifts that can take place internally, that can then lead to more creative, transformative actions in the world. Here they are:

Recognize the interdependence of our lives.

As much as the dominant version of American national identity wants to claim that we are “autonomous,” we are not. Our “I” is always constructed within our “we,” and sometimes we cannot see who is in the “we” that upholds our lives. I wonder if this reality of interdependence was in some sense easier to understand when more of us lived more connected to an agrarian society— when the basic goods of our lives were traded with our local neighbors? Now, the products that I eat and use everyday are created by those neighbors whom I can’t see.

I know it’s a small gesture—a really small exchange of grateful energy—but as we eat our food, and if we are the lucky ones who have access to fruits and vegetables, I do think it is important to give thanks for the people whose hands picked our tomatoes and apples. Perhaps those small moments of thanks everyday will add up and create within us increasing desire to recognize our interdependency, which then might help us participate in advocating for human rights.

For instance, if more of us had more consciousness of our interdependence, we might understand that immigrant rights, and more specifically, the rights of immigrants who are migrant workers in this country, is an issue very close to our daily lives. For the fruits of that neighbor’s labor is as near as it can be—it builds the very cells of our bodies and gives us the nutrients and energy we need for our own day’s work.

So, we need to cultivate daily moments that help us recognize our interconnectivity with our neighbors, even if that neighbor is not geographically proximate. I think that part of the reason such egregious human rights violations take place in this country is because we have a delusion that our “I” is not part of a larger collective “we.”

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History and Economics

I have had the privilege of doing a lot of talking about money and finances with the amazing Hillary Augustine, my dear friend and owner of Excela. Hillary is formally trained both as a therapist and an accountant; she has also been on a gorgeous journey the past many years to understand the intersection of a multiplicity of justice issues. As she talks about money—and helps her clients learn to think and talk about their relationship to money—she also asks people to consider larger structures of economics in this country.

Thus, when she starts some of her classes, she puts a picture of her anglo-family in front of the class and asks, “Let’s look at this picture and talk about money and privilege and social locations.” Her point is to communicate that she comes from a white, middle-class family that has historically benefited from the exploitative capitalistic system as it currently functions in the U.S. And while she has a lot to teach her clients—based on her training and experience—she also wants her clients to understand she speaks and “knows what she knows” from a particular place. Read more »

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How to Envision Justice

So, last week I got to pop into New York for a few days. I met with an amazing NYU professor, Amy Huber, who studied with the incredible Judith Butler. Butler wrote many books which have deeply influenced me, including a text about grief and politics. It’s called Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence, and it’s about how some of us with lots of resources and privileges make certain lives on this planet ungrievable in our imaginations.

By ungrievable I mean we choose not to see and be transformed by the suffering of others—people positioned on this planet with less access to food, freedom, and safety.

Especially post 9-11, as the U.S. struggles with its fears of security, we all have had this tremendous opportunity to recognize our interdependence and shared vulnerability with everyone else on this miraculous, twirling planet. That recognition of shared humanity could lead to creative and compassionate problem solving.

But, tragically, by and large we choose to compulsively retell our delusional story of “American exceptionalism” and continue to try to rely on our military, our bombings, our “shock and awe” campaigns, in an effort to restore that elusive feeling of safety. But wars will never make us safer. Killing other people’s children, husbands, wives, partners, sisters, brothers…these actions do not make the U.S. safer. Read more »

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Violence and Feminist Theory

Trigger Warning: The following post, while meant to be educational in nature, also poses the risk of triggering trauma. Before reading, please make sure that you have the support and self-care you need to continue reading about sexual violence.

Following two recent sexual assaults in public transportation buses (one of which left the woman dead), Jakarta’s Governor Fauzi Bowo had some advice to prevent rape: women ought to ride a motorbike taxi side saddle, and no miniskirts if you plan to get in a taxi. Miniskirts might make the driver “fidgety” he says.

Fortunately, women are protesting his ludicrous, misogynistic, victim-blaming remarks.

But, actually, why aren’t men protesting the insult, too? Because let’s face it—blaming a woman in a miniskirt for “inviting” rape is saying something about men, too. It’s saying that when a man is attracted to a woman, he might have little choice but to use his penis to do violence toward another human being. What a twisted way to think about male sexuality. (Go here to see a 3-minute talk by Hugo Schwyzer on the “myth of male weakness.”)

So, just in case Bowo missed the memo: miniskirts don’t cause violence and rape is not about lust.

Rape is about power, dominance, misogyny, racism, and the worst forms of male entitlement. And oh yah, it’s not just about women—men get raped too. Rape is about hierarchies of masculinity played out via a sexualized form of violence.

Miniskirts have nothing to do with the matter. Really, if it was that simple, we would have figured this all out a long time ago. Patriarchy’s rape culture is a hell of a lot more complicated than miniskirts.

So, check back later this week for more information on what creates rape-culture. But, here’s a hint: rape-culture is positively addicted to blaming the victim and implying or directly stating that the victim is responsible for preventing the assault.

To get a feel for how much we are socialized to blame the victim, read this list about how to stop rape and consider why it almost seems comical to assign the responsibility to men.

But just to remember the good stuff happening: if you didn’t already know, there are lots of men working to end sexual violence. I mean, we gotta first thank the women pioneers who largely started these movements—women who courageously spoke out against violence from within many cultures and contexts—but there are many men who have now joined the work, too. Check out this U.N. page for one example of how men are educating men. Awesome.

I think Gov. Bowo could benefit from some education.

So, in summary, here’s some education for him: Men who rape will stop raping when other men stop making excuses for them. Men who rape will stop raping when other men learn from and join the seasoned women anti-violence workers who understand these issues from years of rigorous study and activism. Men who rape will stop raping when other men are fed-up with cultural messages that imply male sexuality is one miniskirt away from claiming the right to do violence to another human being.

Alright, I’ve got to get breakfast now and read some good poetry or go twirl in my backyard. This stuff is terrible to look at first thing in the morning. Make sure you go do something good for yourself, too.

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On the Writing Process

Dear writers and those who dream of writing: Here’s number 3 in my series on writing. In this episode, I am referencing creative writing, but I will here add that the principle I discuss about speaking more truthfully applies to academic and professional writing, too.

(Enjoy with a cup of Earl Grey. And a dollop of cream.)

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Intersectionality

From the Crunk Feminist Collective comes some good reflections on gender, race, and the culture of tennis.

So, here’s the deal: in her recent U.S. Open match, Serena Williams was angry at a call. Yep, athletes get angry all the time, and their behavior isn’t necessarily mature or justifiable. I don’t actually have much interest in parsing out the good and the bad of Serena Williams’ response. The question I am interested in is how is the anger of a black woman “read” differently than the anger of a white man?

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On the Writing Process

Hey there, dear writers. Here’s another 2-minute episode hosted over at Vimeo. (I am still exploring why my own website can’t seem to host these.) This one is on one of my favorite subjects. If you hang around me too much you know I talk about it all the time.

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