It might surprise you to learn that I was inspired to record this episode because of experiences that I had earlier this year when I traveled to Ghana for vacation (Note: Join the "I Want to Change the World Podcast Community" to see pics and posts from my Ghana trip).
I felt privileged to be able to make the trip. At home I certainly don't feel rich. I'"normal" middle-class American.
However, being able to afford such luxuries as airfare to Ghana, vaccinations and medications from the travel clinic, visa fees, etc. put into perspective that I'm pretty well off - both by global standards and American standards, too, considering how many of us don't have access to affordable housing, child care, or medication, let alone disposable income to spend on travel expenses.
Even when I'm not traveling, I live comfortably enough at home. I pay my bills on time. I live in a cozy apartment in a gentrified area of town. The market a short distance from me has a charcuterie section.
In more than one way, I'm kind of a beneficiary of the broken systems that we, as aspiring world changers, must shift to create a more humane and just world.
And yet, with all of my relative privilege, I found that in Ghana, just as I've found at home and elsewhere abroad, there are people who have a struggle narrative ready for me. Have I had any encounters with the police? Do people (read: black people) still experience discrimination at work? Have I seen 'Just Mercy'? Why don't Black Americans...?
Le sigh.
What if, as long as race/racism is framed in popular imagination as, to quote Toni Morrison from her BRILLIANT essay, "A Race in Mind: The Press in Deed", "the real, the vital, the incendiary story"of social and economic exclusion, we are overlooking or under-looking the real lines of social conflict and inequality?
As you listen to episode# 3, "It Don't Always Be Racism", I invite you to reflect on ways in which you tend to essentialize race in your thinking about complex social issues. If poverty and economic and social marginalization aren't exclusively"black and brown people's problems", whose problems are they? What, if any, role do you see for yourself in doing something about those problems?
If you want to chime in on the discussion, the “I Want to Change the World Podcast Community” on Facebook is the perfect place to do so! You can also email me at janai@gilmorefacilitationllc.com or drop me a line @missjanaiashley on IG.
