“All I know is that the only way we will endure is if each of us shows up to the labor.”
(Valerie Kuar, 2020, p. xv).
This month we are starting a new series of conversations that we are hoping to expand and bring others into. As you read it, you might imagine us sitting over tea, thinking, and talking through questions of unity and difference, consensual solidarity, the scarcity mindset, and taking a beat.
How we show up matters: exploring what consensual solidarity means to us
MA: I read this book by Mia Birdsong called How we show up. It’s about how to be in community. She has a chapter in it on that talks about how we need to get better at conflict within. And I really think we need to talk about that in talking about the ability to be in solidarity with each other.
DD: Agree – when I thinking about you know, after Mr. Floyd was murdered and COVID, and the targeting of many folx at the same time. You know, the rise of racism against persons of East Asian descent, the rise in Islamophobia, the uncovering of graves of Indigenous children, the rise in anti-Semitism, and then systemic Anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism with respect to policing. I think about that and how we didn’t do a good job in post-secondary institutions to make spaces for people to reflect on and engage with each other. We didn’t create the opportunity to listen to each other about not only our uniqueness, but also what white supremacy and heteropatriarchy have done to us all. So, I think now we find ourselves faced with arguably a bigger challenge, because it only exacerbates, it doesn’t ever decrease. Especially in spaces where there’s no conversation, much less, you know, forward practical movement. To what extent do we have that capacity and will to have some very difficult conversations?
MA: When you talked about the university not having spaces for people to talk about their grief and experiences and be heard, I was reflecting that itself feeds into or creates the competitive dynamic- like the attention is scarce. It reflects a type of scarcity mindset, and the scarce resource is attention. That has the potential to feed a dynamic where I can’t acknowledge your suffering because I need everybody to pay attention to mine.
DD: And I was thinking about that because we talked about this before- the analogy of crabs in a barrel. I just think of, especially in these moments of heightened anxiety and uncertainty, that default of “What about me?” All of those things that are being implemented right now, the dehumanizing thoughts, the dehumanizing practices and how we might be tempted to use them against each other rather than seeing ourselves in each other. I am reminded of Dr. Marin Luther King’s famous quote:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Next month the conversation continues, exploring the rush to respond instead of pausing to listen and acknowledge.
Resources
Mia Birdsong (2020). How we show up: Reclaiming family, friendship, and community. New York: Balance.
Valerie Kuar (2020). See no stranger: A memoir and manifesto of revolutionary love. New York: One World.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (May 19, 1963). Letter from a Birmingham jail.