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“love and justice are not two. without inner change, there can be no outer change; without collective change, no change matters.”

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You are here: Home / blog / real and not real: on border and divisions

real and not real: on border and divisions

15 May 2010 by angel Kyodo williams

i have to make a confession…

i’ve been holding up the publication of this month’s journal version of transform. for almost two weeks now. and it’s because i’ve had a block.

not an ordinary writers’ block—which, while annoying, unproductive and sometimes even painful, is generally unwanted—as that would be preferable to the block i’ve been having.

i’ve been having a heart-mind block.

i have found the thinking, choices, behavior and resulting consequences of our people so incomprehensible at a heart level, that my mind has refused to put words to a phenomena that seems beyond them.

when i say our people, i mean OUR people. all of them. the ones that every single human that ever lays eyes on this—from now until the end of time—have a relationship to:

– the people in the Tea Party
– the people never invited to the Party
– the people in Arizona (made up of lines)
– the people of Arizona (made up of lineage)
– the people (and wildlife) within the Gulf Coast
– the people (and profiteers) far away from the Gulf Coast
– the people in the White House
– the people thrown out of their house
– the people of God
– the people that own God
– the people in Israel (that won’t let up)
– the people in Gaza (that can’t get out)

with each upside-down turn of events, my heart has broken further and has threatened to take my mind with it because my mind wants to make sense of something that my heart knows full well it cannot.

and should not.

what i can do instead is try to sort out what is real and what is not. that’s an illusion of sorts too, i know, but this is what i came up with:

Nine Things Real and Not Real

  1. we, the People, are divided by fear, lack of vision and imagination is real.
  2. the so-called border that divides this land from the people we took it from by force is not real
  3. the horrific show of how deep this country’s racism runs, masking itself as it’s very own Party of hatred, is real.
  4. the idea that a President of any race, color, gender or creed can rise above and act beyond a corrupted system that put them there to begin with is not real.
  5. the toxic waste hemorrhaging onto the land from 5000 feel under the sea—laying waste to the life in its path—is real.
  6. the will to stop feeding off of “ancient hours of sunlight” and converting fossils into a fuel that drives death and destruction worldwide is not real.
  7. the cordoning off of nearly 1.5 million people like so much cattle that amounts to a New Millenium Apartheid is real.
  8. the resolve of America and the world to stop financing state-sanctioned war crimes and now international law breaches is not real.
  9. the deep divisions of our society, people and planet, based on the peculiar illusory constructs of race, class, privilege, supremacy and superiority is real. and for this, we will all pay.

genocide is real.
greed is real.
destruction is real.

“illegals” aren’t real.
Mexicans aren’t real.
Americans aren’t real.
Muslims aren’t real.
Jews aren’t real.
fairness is real.
justice is real.
love is real.

People are real.
—yours in truth, aKw


dedicated to all the people that show up for real.


—
copyright ©MMXI. angel Kyodo williams
changeangel: all things change. (sm)

angel Kyodo williams is a maverick teacher, author, social visionary and founder of Transformative Change.
she posts, tweets & blogs on all things change. permission granted to retweet, repost, repast & repeat with copyright and contact information intact.

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Filed Under: blog, culture, essays, politics, relationship Tagged With: america, arizona, gaza, immigration, israel, racism, SB1070

About angel Kyodo williams

angel Kyodo williams, the "change angel," is Founder of the national Transformative Change, for which she now serves as a Senior Fellow and Director of Vision, and Founder Emeritus of Berkeley-based Center for Transformative Change. Both bridge inner and outer change for social justice activists towards wholeness, wellbeing and effective action. A social visionary and leading voice for transformative social change, she is the author of the critically-acclaimed Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace and co-author of the latest Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love & Liberation.
 
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