So apparently Michael Jordan is now a billionaire according to some reports. I cant bring myself to celebrate any billionaire of any ethnicity-- their success sure, their egregious wealth in the midst of so much human misery, absolutely not. How can we celebrate that kind of accumulation and concentration of wealth--more money than they can spend on several lifetimes-- when almost half the world- over 3 billion people- liv on less than R30 a day? With so many people struggling to simply keep their families afloat, so many more suffering for lack of basic needs, housing and healthcare? Ive said before and I will say it again: The problem is not the 1%, its that a large portion- perhaps most- of the 99% would gladly join the 1% if given the chance. In the same way that native South Africans consistently vote against their best interests, in many ways we, the 99%, are prejudiced against our own survival. Perhaps our biggest illness aside from European supremacy and patriarchy is our inability to say I have enough, let me help someone else. More and more it appears that the biggest difference between the 1% and everyone else is not a difference in values, but a difference in purchasing power. Behind nearly every ideology, whether political or religious, is an ask. The proponents and prophets ask us to do something: to be better, to do the work of growth and transformation, to help make way for a better world. Whether its Christianity or Islam or African spiritual system, whether it is Feminism, Marxism, Afrocentrism, Anti-racism, they all ask others to do something: to be better, to do the work, courageously. And so often the problem with these asks is that the people doing the asking are not asking the same of themselves. Simultaneously prophets of vision that can work, and the best demonstrations of why it wont work. Audre Lorde was right that the: true focus of revolutionary change is never the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within us. Because without that kind of focus all you end up with is folks jockeying to see who gets to play oppressor next. There is a better world available, but it starts with us asking ourselves, first, the things we would ask of others, and doing our very best to banish excuses and inviting applied consistency to be the best demonstration of the ask.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 12:35:20 +0000
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