("Old Falling Down House" by FairieGoodMother)
Centering is on my mind today.
Or, more specifically, decentering.
Because I keep running into problems on all sides of the equation as my faith and my country begin the terrible and wonderful work of decentering "whiteness" and wealth and masculinity and able-bodied status in our American cultural machine.
On one side, words like privilege and fragility cause an uproar. Racism and abelism and classism come into play. Toxic masculinity rears its head and other body bits.
All to keep the status quo firmly status quo as we begin the blood-boiling task of dismantling the work of colonialization and empire-building.
On another side, some fight to decenter the current centers, but struggle with naming what will replace them. Some claim nothing will.
Some few seek to center themselves, and profit personally, rather than systemically, in the process.
There is always a center. It's how systems work. There is a principle they are based on, a physical point they are balanced on, an attribute or attribute set they regard as most favorable for operation, something.
And the problem is that we have based or centered our current systems on the wrong attributes entirely- not just on the wrong subsets of those attributes.
Empire got it wrong.
It isn't about skin color.
Or gender.
Or wealth.
Or physical ability.
Or religious choice
Or language.
Or immigration status.
Or heterosexuality.
None of those things should be centered. None of those things should be "the right choice" or "the preferred option" or "the one that makes life easier." We aren't trying to simply change who is oppressed going forward.
No attribute should be the center at all.
We have to take apart the current machine entirely, and rebuild it.
The center is equity. The center must be equity. The machine itself must work differently.
It is the only way to move forward without destroying ourselves in the process. Because equity doesn't mean destruction. Equity doesn't mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Equity is not diversity or inclusion, though it includes them. It is not equality, because it surpasses it.
Equity is a condition where all people, ALL people, receive what they need to survive and succeed, whether in a society or in a subset of a society (an industry, a religion, an educational system).
It means that if three people all need to see over a 5 foot fence, the 3 foot person is given a 2.5 foot box to stand on, and a ladder to use to step up onto it. The 5 foot person is given a slim 6 inch platform and no ladder, and the 7 foot tall person is given nothing.
It DOESN'T mean, however, that the 7 foot tall person is made to stand in an 18 inch deep hole. That isn't equity, it is oppression. Forcing anyone to do or be less is the way to Kurt Vonnegut's nightmare dystopia, Harrison Bergeron, where the graceful were weighted down, and the brilliant forced to only be as intelligent as the least capable among them.
That is not equity.
Equity means things have to change. Equity means reimagining how we do almost everything in this country, from home sales and rentals to hiring to policing to receiving medical care. It means changes to education, and to religion.
It means that we have to commit, because people won't wait forever. People can't wait forever. We are all losing every moment that the way is blocked for a black scientist, a Latinex mathematician, a queer sculptor, a theologian in a wheelchair...
We need one another to succeed and thrive.
The Age of Empire is over. We have to fix the machine, before it catches fire, and takes the whole house with it. No more fooling around.
So let's move. We've got work to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment