We Need to Act
Yesterday I led our Regional middle-class gather-in. I talked mostly about the RC project and how we use it.
I mentioned how Tim Jackins has been encouraging us to work on our earliest defeats and most unbearable material [distress]. And I added that if we’re not using our regained intelligence to do something, we need to get a more interesting hobby! I said that I could try to build up my shoulder muscles so they were as strong and defined as I could get them, but if there was nothing I wanted to do with stronger shoulder muscles, why should I put in all the effort?
We can get into the habit of simply having sessions and remembering hard things that happened to us and how hard they’ve made our present life. But that’s not enough in this period. At an ending classism workshop, Marcie Rendon (the International Liberation Reference Person for Native Americans) said that, given the current situation in the world, the time is over for us to discharge our way to being able to do things. In fifteen years or so we can have sessions about how much easier it would have been if we could’ve had more sessions before we took action. But for now we need to act, and discharge as we do what needs to be done.
I also mentioned that many of us are in the privileged position of not being directly affected by the current situation. Maybe our distress comforts us into thinking that we have enough money, live in the “right” place, or know the “right” people, so we won’t be affected drastically. This is our oppressor material and our privilege. We need to see ourselves as part of everyone and do what we can to make things work well for everyone.
We stayed together as a group for longer sessions. Sometimes I encouraged people to think about what they wanted, or what aspect of the current situation had caught their attention. Other times I pushed them to notice what big things they were already doing. And sometimes I just had to hold out confidence that their minds were working well, even if they didn’t feel like they were.
Everyone used their turn in their own way, and by the end of the afternoon we were much more connected. It also felt good to be taking on [undertaking] our own big projects with the backing [support] of our middle-class sisters and brothers!
Greensboro, North Carolina, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion
list for leaders of middle-class people