I am glad some friends have responded to my post yesterday, Dangers of lack of diversity in Quaker meetings today.
Some comments mention an underlying tone of anger, making broad generalizations and not being clear about what I’m asking Friends to do. All of which I can see now.
As I was writing, I understood I was making generalizations. But if I always said things like “some Friends…”, “male Friends…”, I felt that would dilute what I was trying to say. Some would see those qualifications as an indication that what I was saying was not directed at them. I made the assumption that those who are exceptions would realize they were (exceptions). Now I can see that such an implicit assumption was not good.
I sometimes make the mistake of feeling anger in situations where I am frustrated. That also is not good. I have been deeply frustrated about many things, some for my entire life. Chief among those is a life-long disappointment that many Friends seemed comfortable with the status quo, with many conveniences from being part of the dominant culture in this country.
Some specific examples include my disappointment that few Friends refused to cooperate with the Selective Service System, which meant an acceptance of the validity of the draft, and militarism. Some of the people I most admired were those who refused to cooperate, most of whom were incarcerated. It was their example that helped me make my own decision to not cooperate. These were risky decisions, but I thought that was what Quakers did, take those risks when that was what they were led to do.
There is my life-long attempt to convince Friends to reject the conveniences of the automobile culture that developed in this country. I was led to live without owning a car. That was inconvenient in many ways. I was always aware the reason I could do so was because I lived where mass transit was available. Actually, anytime I moved in Indianapolis, I made sure the new place would be on a city bus line and within walking distance of a grocery store, laundry, and my work.
Of course, mass transit was not an option in rural areas. I hoped Friends living there would work on ways to rely less on fossil-fueled transportation. Why couldn’t there be community based transit systems in rural areas? Most did what they could to otherwise reduce their carbon footprint.
But here is the point. If we had all worked to build mass transit systems and walkable communities, we would not be in our current, dire, rapidly deepening environmental chaos, on the path to our own extinction. How could we do this to our children and Mother Earth? This life-long frustration does leak out as anger at times.
If we had all worked to build mass transit systems and walkable communities, we would not be in our current, dire, rapidly deepening environmental chaos, on the path to our own extinction
Much of this frustration is with myself. Why wasn’t I more effective in getting Friends to see what was happening?
This was a constant in many of the dangers of lack of diversity I wrote about. I am not blameless. Thus, much of the frustration and anger is directed at myself as well.
As I spent years in oppressed communities, I began to understand the deep injustices inflicted on my friends. Injustices hurting them everyday, in so many ways. That’s why I feel such a sense of urgency and frustration that more Friends don’t see these injustices and work to heal them now.
This is not an equivocation about what I wrote yesterday.
As to what I long for Friends to do, it is to find any way they are led to become engaged in diverse communities. And specifically Mutual Aid communities. (I capitalize Mutual Aid to emphasize the difference between “real” Mutual Aid versus charity work. I write about all this extensively on my blog, Quakers and Mutual Aid). Because Mutual Aid communities are founded on the principle of rejecting hierarchies. The power structure of any type of hierarchy always results in a form of dominance. And dominance is the root of injustice. So, any attempt at social justice that has any hierarchical structure simply extends the dominance.
There is an Iowa Mutual Aid Network. You can connect with Mutual Aid communities and projects here: https://iowamutualaid.org/
I included this graphic in yesterday’s post in the hope that you will seek a way to engage with a Mutual Aid or similar community. And hope these points can help you as the Spirit might guide you on your own journey.
Finally, I believe we will be forced to work with communities outside our meetings as the collapse of our social, economic, and political structures accelerates. We will all be forced to find our way through the chaos. Mutual Aid communities already know how to do this because we are doing it now.
Quakers and Mutual Aid 