Solidarity

I feel very unfinished in this post. It’s not a conclusion I write. It’s not a summary. It’s not the final empty of river to ocean. Rather, this is midstream. Questions that contribute to learning that is both deeply personal, and simultaneously, broadly relevant and lived by many.

What is solidarity? What is my responsibility with solidarity? What is my offering of solidarity unique to the times and to the reckonings of today? Solidarity to, or with, what? What nuance matters? What brings healing, inner and outer? What brings genuineness, now and with longer arc?

This is a grouping of questions that I don’t have answers for, though some have offered their version of very clear conclusions. As it is for me, I tend to be a person that must look further internally so that I’m not just nodding my head in external agreement. I tend to be a person that must also feel a clarity in my heart, not just an obligation to groupthink. This is some of the gift that I know that I bring. And some of the struggle.

I don’t seek spreadsheet analysis here. I’m not looking for an exhausting list of pros and cons of solidarity. I’m seeking for enough clarity to feel liberation in what sometimes looks like, and requires, sacrifice and unfettered commitment.

My heart seeks to do good. I know this. My being tends to seek peaceable ways. I know this. I ask myself what is required of me, in these days? And I’m aware that what solidarity asks of me might be uniquely slanted to the openings of transition in fields of equity and justice. What does it mean for me to be ally? What does it mean for me to be accomplice? What is at the core of that, and what are the fuzzy edges, and what are the required messy middles? What does it mean for me, personally and collectively, as a white man to contribute to the movements of today — in a scale that ranges from contributing healing to global foundation wounds, to being a generally good friend and neighbor?

What boundaries remain important in spirit beings having human experiences that enable me and others to, as activist Prentiss Hemphil says, “live me and you simultaneously?” (Thx Bianca for that reference.) What is required of me, as a new bar of commitment with my brown-skinned friends and family and community that contributes energy in directions of justice and liberation while simultaneously freeing me living me nested with you living you?

These are questions. I don’t have answers. I only wish to live into the now of it all, with action, yes, but also with kindness of heart.

To be continued.

One Reply to “Solidarity”

  1. Thank you for this, I was thinking earlier maybe being in healthy community is what solidarity is,? It’s like what’s required in circle, to hold the whole, to contribute to what moves the group forward in each moment. I wonder if even the word solidarity is born out of our wounded communities.

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