How Will You Show That We Are All Connected?

I challenge you to answer this one. Post a comment, link to a blog. Tweet me. But I want to hear your response to this final Quest 2017 prompt by Rebecca Walker:

This coming year you have the ability to share a bit of your privilege, energy, and love in a way perhaps you haven’t done before. In 2017, for what person or group will you support with your whole heart and clear voice to make their life easier and personal evolution more possible? How will you manifest your understanding that we are all connected?

I’ll go First:

It is easy for me to amplify the voices of others. Being a megaphone for someone who is already speaking is as simple as a retweet. I’m not going to stop doing that. But it’s not nearly enough. I must sacrifice my silence and speak on behalf of those who do not have voices.

There’s a trick to that, though. I can’t do that from my own heart, mind and brainspace. I can’t speak out on behalf of others if I don’t know what they want to say. So, I’ll need to  ask more questions.

I have a list of blog posts that I intend to write, or maybe post them somewhere else- medium? – I don’t know. But I know what’s asked of me as a writer. I have to wrap words around the unspeakable. I intend to do that in the coming year.

I don’t know the answer to Rebecca’s question about which group of people I will support writ large. I support a lot of groups of people, and sometimes that ideological bigness makes personal action feel overwhelming and insignificant.

The specific people I will support will be my direct reports at work. My neighbors. The people I ride the train with on my commute.

This smaller, more specific list includes millennials, women of color, trans and LGBTQA people, young families, the elderly, the homeless, young black men, veterans, Christians, Muslims, Jews, pagans, atheists, and schizophrenics who have touched the hand of God.

These are the people I pass on the sidewalk, in the breakroom, on the escalator.  These are the people I’ll ask my questions.  These are the people I’ll embrace and support with my voice, my privilege, and my power.

When I see a young black man walking toward me in the dark of evening, I scan his features because I might know him. He is probably my neighbor, and I likely know his mom.  That is how I manifest that we are all connected. Everyone I meet is one of my neighbors.