Last night I was skyping with Hayden who is in Bangladesh
and when we inevitably drifted to politics, he said, “American values are free
speech and greed.”
This comment took me back to my years living in New York
City in the late 90s; the ‘Sex and the City’ years. I once had a friend
visiting from Ireland say to me, “New York is so superficial.” I was confused
by this statement. New York was (is) the best place on Earth. In that moment,
however, I saw this rather obvious criticism for the first time.
As we are bombarded daily by the new reality of the US
government, above all things, I come back to this reflection on greed. Most of those
who ‘have’ are clearly wanting to keep it that way. Those like me, just outside
the 1 % (ok, 10%), are pretty comfy too. Those who are way outside the 1% see material
things deluge our society and are constantly reminded of all that they don’t
have.
Me. Mine. Not theirs. Not them. Is greed really the dominant
American value? Why?
I see left-leaning, predominantly white and privileged
America waking to this as it finally impinges on them or someone they know. I
see white kids with Black Lives Matter posters and think, “weird,” and then I
think, “good,” and then I remember my giant Keith Haring Anti-Apartheid poster
from college and think “oh…right.” I see LGBTI and Black people saying, “we
told you we couldn’t let up on the fight for our rights.”
In a personal quest to become mindful, active and woke, I
just finished Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad, a book I read to remember
and respect the pain and humiliation of slavery. When I finished it, I thought:
this is how far we have come and how far we have to go. How do we stop the collapse
in the value of all human life? In Syria, South Sudan, Eastern Kentucky, and
neighborhoods just blocks away from my own house in DC, is it already too late?
As a mom of a 3 year old, I understand that teaching empathy
and other antidotes of greed are really hard. My son said to me the other day, “mommy,
I need soccer shoes.” I thought, how does he even know about soccer shoes? And
how did he figure out “I need” = “I want” already?! It’s not easy and I search
for ways to push against the tide of greed that I see at the root of what’s
happening in America today in our families, communities and government.
Do we run to a place like New Zealand or Denmark? I won’t
lie, I’ve made inquiries.
Today, I paused at lunch time and took 18 minutes (18 whole minutes) to watch the Pope’s message on tenderness. I made myself watch it, because I knew it would be good and because I
needed it. As he said, we are becoming “a culture of waste” and we
“place products at our core instead of people.” He also said that hope starts
with one person and builds into a “revolution of us.” I do not agree with the
Pope on everything. One day, for example, I hope he and the Catholic Church will
understand that women’s rights are human rights.
I don’t have to agree with everything that everyone says though. This is a hard truth for me (& most of us) to live. I’m not ready to go off to a red state and debate vaginas. I am ready to accept that in order to fight against the value and structure of greed in our society, we must choose tenderness, empathy, and above all else, love for ourselves and for everyone else.
