What a world we live in! It’s a challenge to stay grounded as great waves of change sweep in and engulf us. I’ve struggled to find my footing in this newest wave, the national uprising around racism and policing. I’m not content with making statements, but not prepared to risk infection by joining protests in the streets. It’s been good to take the time to learn about the history of police systems, and humbling to acknowledge that I’d never done so before (check out mpd150.com). I realize that what I most want for white people is to tend to ourselves and our relationships in the light of racism—to feel the heartbreak, dare to make mistakes, decide to stay. When we have practiced going through that fire, we’ll have so much more to offer the world around us. And so I come to realize that the piece I decided not to share in March, just as we had been knocked off our feet by the wave of COVID, may be my best offering as we work to ground ourselves in this next great wave.
Love,
Pamela
The gift
Building on dual passions, for urban agriculture and for connections across barriers that divide us, I joined the board of a local urban farming project years ago. The farm, then a white-led initiative in a black neighborhood, was full of everything that is right and everything that is wrong in our society. It has been a rich and wonderful experience, and nothing about it has been easy.
As we struggled with the problems of any small non-profit, with scarcity on all fronts, we also found ourselves dealing with gut-wrenching staff issues centered around gender and race, all within the context of an unfulfilled vision of local leadership, and ever-present second-guessing about the appropriateness of white people like me being involved at all.
I had to look hard at the ugliness of racism as it affected all of us in so many ways. Several years in, I found myself leading the board because no one else would do it, and we all knew I could. I felt the weight of the farm’s survival heavy on my shoulders as I tried to nurture new board members and staff of color, follow the leadership that was there, and hold everything together in the face of unrelenting challenges.
Our commitment to grounding the farm back in its neighborhood led to a shared decision a few years ago to not make a new administrative hire till we could hire locally, which led to more work for our one farmer, greater burden on the few remaining board members, and an increasingly stressed context for both program work and fundraising.
We’ve done amazingly well under the circumstances, made good decisions, survived. The potential remains enormous and I’ve never regretted the choice to put so much time and energy into nurturing this jewel of an urban farm. I’ve loved being around all the people who love it, and have known that it was a gift in my life. One fellow board member, who clearly values me but just doesn’t reassure or comfort my whiteness, has shown a light on parts of me that might otherwise have gone unexamined. Life just would have been so much more comfortable if I’d looked away and settled for smaller challenges!
Months ago there was a turnaround—with new local board members of color, some very successful grant-writing, and a vision on the part of this friend, now our board leader. to transform to a cooperative model based in the black farmers movement. That first newly-expanded and energized board meeting brought more unexpected emotional work for me. Now, rather than feeling overwhelmed by just trying to keep the farm afloat, I was overwhelmed by feelings that I was no longer needed—clearly the wrong color, in the wrong place.
I fought my way, slowly and painfully, to the perspective that it’s not my job to act preemptively on the assumption that I’m not welcome, even if I’m white, even if it would feel easier to give up and disappear. It’s not mine to make assumptions about how others perceive me. That’s their job. My job is to keep showing up as fully as I know how, despite my feelings, and to let others take the lead in evaluating my contribution and working out the racial composition of the board going forward. At some point, everything I’m doing now may well be adequately and more appropriately done by others, but I can still be fully present till then. I can continue to treasure the relationships that have been built through struggle over the years. I can even make new ones.
In the midst of all this hard work—emotional and otherwise—I had the opportunity to support a young climate activist friend. His vision, commitment and initiative had put him in the center of the national climate movement, with all its contentious issues around turf, leadership, and direction, and with opportunities to make race-related mistakes at every turn. He was engaged in a delicate racially-charged alliance-building project and glad for the opportunity to get some attention.
What became abundantly clear was that living through the challenges in my own little corner of the world had set me up to understand experientially the challenges he was dealing with. By bringing my own hard-won experience to the table, knowing in my bones something of what he was going through, he could rest in feeling seen and understood. He could use the space I was able to offer to look at his hardest feelings, regain perspective and think freshly about next steps. As I stretched to bring everything I had to support this man I loved, doing work that mattered deeply to me, I was thankful beyond words for the gifts I had been given by the farm.
Slipping the leash
Good human.
Stay inside.
Walk with a mask.
Don’t consort with strangers
(or anyone else).
Do your work safely.
Wash your hands.
Follow the rules.
Life can be good
indoors and on a leash.
Pleasures can be sniffed out.
There can be rewards.
But, oh to run free!
Escape far into the woods.
Leave life on a leash
far behind.
Take in deep and fearless breaths
Cavort, play, run, explore
in exquisite freedom.
Till the time comes
to return
and submit once more
to the leash.
Dare to imagine: Another economy is possible!
Many worker cooperatives around the world are responding to the pandemic by producing personal protective equipment. In Spain, a cooperative of the Mondragón group is adapting its production to manufacture 60 million masks over a six-month period. On a smaller scale, members of the largely-female worker coop Ipiranga in Brazil, the Tejiendo Paz Cooperative in Colombia, Cooperative Home Care Associates sewing coop in the US, twelve Italian coops, 17 Bulgarian worker coops employing people with disabilities, the French worker cooperative SCOP TI, the Polish Social Cooperative “Centrum Aktywizacji Zawodowej” which reintegrates people with disabilities in the job market, and the Druchema coop in the Union of Czech Production cooperatives have all adapted their production to personal protective equipment and disinfectant products.
https://www.cicopa.coop/news/covid19-how-cooperatives-in-industry-and-services-are-responding-to-the-crisis/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
All the courage, civic-mindedness and commitment to justice that has been evident over the last couple of weeks, among so many people all across our country.
The decision by the Minneapolis City Council to switch to investing in proven community-led public safety rather than traditional policing models.
https://theappeal.org/minneapolis-city-council-members-announce-intent-to-disband-the-police-department-invest-in-proven-community-led-public-safety/
The success of a three-year campaign to stop a major fracked gas pipeline in New York City has been stopped for good thanks to a 3-year Stop Williams Pipeline campaign, sending a signal across the U.S. that we don’t need more fossil fuel infrastructure.
https://350.org/williamspipelinevictory/?akid=121761.1048214.Pogdjn&rd=1&t=6
A federal judge’s ruling against the Bureau of Land Management’s recent approval of oil and gas leases across staggering swaths of Montana’s public lands, a victory that protects local groundwater and the climate for Montana landowners, farmers, and conservation groups.
https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2020/news-rural-landowners-farmers-and-conservation-groups-celebrate-court-victory-halting-risky-oil-and-gas-giveaway
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
All the courage, civic-mindedness and commitment to justice that has been evident over the last couple of weeks, among so many people all across our country.
The decision by the Minneapolis City Council to switch to investing in proven community-led public safety rather than traditional policing models.
https://theappeal.org/minneapolis-city-council-members-announce-intent-to-disband-the-police-department-invest-in-proven-community-led-public-safety/
The success of a three-year campaign to stop a major fracked gas pipeline in New York City has been stopped for good thanks to a 3-year Stop Williams Pipeline campaign, sending a signal across the U.S. that we don’t need more fossil fuel infrastructure.
https://350.org/williamspipelinevictory/?akid=121761.1048214.Pogdjn&rd=1&t=6
A federal judge’s ruling against the Bureau of Land Management’s recent approval of oil and gas leases across staggering swaths of Montana’s public lands, a victory that protects local groundwater and the climate for Montana landowners, farmers, and conservation groups.
https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2020/news-rural-landowners-farmers-and-conservation-groups-celebrate-court-victory-halting-risky-oil-and-gas-giveaway
Resources
Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election.
www.findingsteadyground.com
Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)
Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election.
www.findingsteadyground.com
Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)
