We better be listening to those among us who are the youth and our elders, or we're doomed:
There are themes in lectures and one of them is how dominant systems of learning and values about who is most intelligent, rule out listening to the people we most need to support speaking out. Because the story of the White Man is a very limited, dishonest, and self-serving story, and while some white men have radical things to say, it won't be white men who lead us out of the hell on earth that has been manufactured through processes of unsustainable destruction and poisoning of our bodies, the land, the sky, and the sea.
If the BP oil spill crisis doesn't demonstrate how ill-equipped the White Man is to do anything good for the environment, I don't know what other evidence we need. The White Man cares about plunder and pillage, rape and theft; this is what the White Man does best and most often. It's time for him to be made to sit down and make room for others to lead.
To quote Audre Lorde's famous speech, the Master's tools will never dismantle the Master's house: he will make every miserable use of his tools (including especially his weapons of mass destruction) to defend what he believes is his land, his property, his, his, his. And what is his has conveniently been defined and bounded only by the White Man's laws. No other worldviews and ethical standards support the way he sees himself and what he does that he calls "good" and "moral".
The White Man will defend his own distorted sense of his self-importance and allegedly necessary controlling presence in all earthly matters, at all costs to humanity, non-human animals, and the rest of Life. The White Man brings death and disease, destruction and degradation to all he touches. Why, then, don't we support women of color taking leadership?
First, this brief lecture by twelve year old writer/author, Adora Svitak:
Next, Nawal El Saadawi on creativity and dissidence:
Thoughts? Feedback?
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