I didn’t know and nobody told me
I’ve been thinking a lot about the kinds of people to whom resources are not readily given, because those are so often the ones we know should be running the show.
As Sekai Farai put it, “Let the wild ones work. Give them something. Fund them.”
We tend to know, almost instinctively, who the wild ones are. The ones who challenge us, the ones who disagree, the ones who demand to know why we are not better, are not doing better, the ones who are simply better. They do more with less. We bristle and smile and don’t hire them and don’t promote them and gradually manage them out. We tell people they are “difficult”.
And then we congratulate ourselves for ensuring “culture fit” and maintaining “civility”.
Some of us were wild ones once. Some of us thought we were.
Our attachment to the notion that we are the good ones is precisely the thing that ensures we will do harm.
There is no time left to be convinced of anything other than the urgency of this moment, and of the necessity of asking ourselves why we fear the people whose primary power lies in their ability to question ours.
Attribution:
“I didn’t know and nobody told me and what
could I do or say, anyway?
Yes, I did know it was the money I earned as a poet that
paid
for the bombs and the planes and the tanks
that they used to massacre your family
But I am not an evil person
The people of my country aren't so bad
You can expect but so much
from those of us who have to pay taxes and watch
American TV” - From Apologies to All the People in Lebanon by June Jordan