It should go without saying the deep gratitude that I have for each of you; those who contributed to our March goal, and those of you who are stepping up to meet the needs of the featured organizations we have identified for our engagement this month. The totals are encouraging. As a community, we have raised $880 combined for our three featured organizations.
Still, even though my personal thanks should be stipulated, I think it’s important to know just how deeply I thank you. I am gobsmacked at the level of participation, even as we invite and encourage those of you who have not yet had the opportunity to engage to do so.
If anyone wondered why we at Lace on Race push our guiding ethos, mission and method hard and frequently, here, right here, is the reason for the repetition.
I have said many times over the last two years that one of the practices that is crucial as we walk is that we learn, in a marrow-deep internalized way, how to share our resources reflexively, with a minimum of hesitation and clench. We have talked about this as it pertains to LoR, and, crucially, to other commentators, thinkers, and activists in the racial justice sphere.
So much so, that it has been an easy pivot for us to direct our attention, our fictive imaginations, and our commitment to relentless and reliable and resilient praxis to those we have committed to stand with. This is why we do what we do, learn what we learn, and act from that deep internal place. This is what integrity looks like. As we walk with each other, we look outward. Our walk is not for us alone.
I am thinking and writing about how all of this connects. In fact, the final installment of the series ‘Notes from the Crucible’ will be entitled, ‘The Cure Is Connection’. I feel that strongly, just as I feel that the last two years of this work has culminated in this very time, right now. This is why I have said time and again that who we are here and what we do here is not for our aggrandizement, and it is not working in the abstract and the hypothetical.
The illustrations and metaphors we employ to enhance understanding and internalization of material and instruction are not to be used in service to admiration of clever turns of phrases, or to serve to distance ourselves by leaning into abstract language or into the symbolic as opposed to the very real and actual issues and crises.
Rather, we are here to learn to Lean In, ever more fully, into becoming the people we say that we want to be. There is no question that this present moment, this present crisis, will indeed change us all. Given that, the only question really to posed then, is how exactly WILL it ultimately change us? This is the time for dirt caked knees and hands becoming calloused, even as our hearts stay soft and open, as we bend our individual branches to harvest very tangible, and very crucial, fruit.
Another piece I am drafting will be about the new calibration in relationship between ourselves and those who brave their very lives for us, no matter who they are: delivery drivers, health care workers, from the aides who deliver hands on, to researchers to nurses and doctors; from those who keep us fed, to those who, despite their own fears of exposure, come in to work. And calibration between those workers and those who employ them.
There are lessons embedded therein that should not be ignored now, nor dismissed when this crisis is over. There are things that employers would rather we not discuss amongst ourselves; we talked about one aspect, how we are paid, just last month. But other conversations have also emerged that deserve our attention: the erosion of protections for workers which only come into play when there is a crisis. The lack of transparency by decision makers, which only fuels fear. The re-calibration of what ‘essential worker’ actually means. And always, always, the stark recognition that it is the most marginalized among us who will bear the brunt of this, both now and in the future. What we have been talking about in the last two years matters.
Even as I urge you to engage here, so I also encourage all of us with influence and power (and that is, to whatever degree that is, every one of us) to apply what you have learned here to your larger communities; to leverage and to speak up and to advocate without outsize fear for your own position. Those of us with social capital hoarded up: now is the time to spend it.
I love each of you. Keep safe. Walk together. In this community we have co-created, we *can* hold hands and speak closely. Come here for cool water. Go back out and serve.
This is the time to harvest all the oranges, and serve all the casseroles. We got this.
With so much love, Your Lace
Leave a Reply