from a speech by Van Jones
Highlights from Van Jones speech at the the Pachamama Alliance Awakening the Dreamer Global Community Gathering. Reprinted with permission from the Pachamama Alliance.
The following are excerpts from his speech. For the entire 8,000+ word speech please email us for a PDF version.
Let’s just be real. It’s not an accident—you didn’t just forget, like a kind of a big “Oopsie!” to spend a whole lot of time in black communities. Right? I mean it’s like we’ve got this whole level of pretence: “I really want to get this social justice stuff but I’m just confused.” Right? “I just don’t know how…” “It’s difficult, but I’m committed.” That’s one way to hold it. But when you look at our actual lives, you didn’t know how to do the spiritual work, but you couldn’t have stopped you at a certain point. You were clicking on websites, you were going to workshops, you were going to symposiums, you were buying audio books, you were driving in traffic listening about meditation, swerving off the road trying to get enlightened, right? It’s like that was not the most enlightened way to go about it but you didn’t care—you were passionate, committed, unstoppable.
You started learning about the ecological crisis, and after being devastated or whatever, you wanted to learn about—water. You started to listen to something on PBS about water or about species or about energy and global warming. There you are killing your photocopier at work printing stuff out on websites, messing up the color photocopier. Right? Trying to get educated, trying to educate yourself about this stuff. But in general, and there will be some exceptions, you will find in your peer group if not in your own life, when it comes to social justice, when it comes to race, when it comes to civil rights, when it comes to immigration, when it comes to colonization, it’s like: “Maybe somebody will give a workshop at some point and I will go...”
That difference is your greatest teacher. It’s actually looking at that, honestly, not to beat up on yourself. It’s not about—we’re not trying to self-flagellate ourselves into some kind of alliance. Were not trying to beat ourselves up and use guilt and shame to get us to fall in love with each other. Those things don’t go well together. But the path toward finding each other is to really look at why haven’t we found each other? Most of the time when it’s time for us to have these conversations, we go into a very predictable pattern. Let me describe the pattern. It’s called, constipation. You know what I mean? It’s like, ok, “Now we’re going to talk about r-a-c-e.” You clench your butt … and hope that this will be over soon. And that’s before it gets bad, that’s the high point of the discussion, and then it goes down from there. Why?
Communication problem
There’s a communication problem between African American folks and white folks. (We’re talking about this country and the rest of you from other countries can just fill in the blanks, you know, switch and swap.)
You’re in a situation where white people tend to fear that the discussion is going to work out badly. So there’s fear that is present. White people then tend to fear that if they say that they are afraid, that they are going to be called racists. Right? So they don’t want to say that they’re afraid. So automatically we’re in this particular kind of tension. Then the conversation starts, and the white person tries to find some kind things to say, something that won’t cause too many problems and then experiences explosions. Right? And then you go, you know, “I can’t wait to do this again next year.” And that becomes the basis of it.
I want to suggest that there’s a communication problem and there are two things that are happening. Number one: it’s just very, very hard for white people to hear the pain of the subjugated people in this country. It’s just very hard to accept that we can get in a car and ten minutes from now we would be in east Oakland, literally ten minutes from here, where there has been an epidemic of murders this year. Where kids are going to school in classrooms with 30 kids in the classroom, one teacher, six books and no chalk. It’s so hard to accept that, literally, there are within ten minutes of here, two and three-year old children that if you show them flowers or balloons they’ll start crying because they’ll assume that it’s another funeral or a sidewalk memorial for a kid that got killed. That’s ten minutes from here….
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So we live together in these bubbles that touch, and we call that diversity, but we don’t know each other. And when that bubble breaks for just a second and we’re face to face with each other, it’s very, very hard to hear that reality.
But white supremacy, to use the provocative term, will reinterpret that experience for you; and make it not be about your inability to hear, but be about other people’s inability to speak. This is one of the most remarkable things: if you can get this, all doors open. There is the assumption—this is deep, this is deep—there is the assumption that when there’s a breakdown in communication between people of color and white people, that there is an deficiency but that the deficiency is not in white listening, that the deficiency is in black speech. “Why are they so angry?” People start critiquing, and then you find somebody who keeps themselves together just for a little bit and it’s, “Oh that one’s very eloquent, that one’s very articulate.” Right? Always the assumption is that the deficiency lies with the people of color. “Why don’t they care about the environment? What wrong with them, don’t they see the big picture? We’ve been talking at them about this for years? Don’t they see that we have this big beautiful conference, this big beautiful training? Why aren’t they coming? What’s wrong with them? We’ve been outreaching at them for years, I could show you the e-mails I’ve sent outreaching at them. I even make phone calls out reaching at them. What’s wrong with them? Maybe they are just too poor or busy, because certainly there is nothing wrong with our speech!”
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Spiritual practice & environmental commitment
Now, it is literally impossible for most white people to hear people of color speak about our pain, just literally impossible. The only people who have a chance to pull it off, are people who have a spiritual practice, who have a meditation practice, who have a contemplative practice, who have the ability to stay present, even when it’s difficult and know that if I can just stay present, if I can just keep my mind calm and at peace and still through this painful moment, some wisdom is going to emerge. And there’s going to be some insight that I had no idea was out there for me, if I can just stay present. So your spiritual practice and your environmental commitment, are the two rocks, the two anchors, the two pillars that will let you move through this.
And I want to say to you that there will be a time when we can sit honestly across from each other, and when that happens there’s going to be so many tears on both sides. So many tears on both sides. You have been robbed of your humanity; you have been stripped of your ability to stand with the human family and to really know and to celebrate and to love, and you’ve been robbed of your ability to be seen as who you are. Not just the privilege, the affluent, the elite who had it all easy and had it all good while everybody else is suffering. But you’ve suffered in your own hearts, in your own homes, in your own lives. And you don’t have a language that you can speak and feel authentic in speaking about your own journey. Because there’s always that voice that says you’re the elite; at least you’re this; at least you’re that. So how do you get to be whole? How do you get to be both/and, both powerful people and hurt people? Both privileged powerful people and people who are scared and don’t know what to do? Because there’s something about this division that says, “Well, you are the top dogs, so you don’t get a chance to complain very much.”
The system is not working for anybody and so what I want to say to you is that the Pachamama Alliance’s commitment to find a new dream—that has a place for everybody—We talk about social justice and it’s not just saying everybody meaning ‘those poor people I never met’; it also means 100% of you; 100% of who you are; 100% of your story, both the good and the bad.
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Ella Baker Center – third wave of environmentalism
So let me suggest to you how we are trying, out of the Ella Baker Center, to create a common place for us. Our view is that this is a third wave of environmentalism. The first one being about conservation and natural resources, the second being about regulation of industrial pollutions and toxins. But this third wave is about investment in the solutions, in the new technologies, in new products, in new services. In hybrid cars and solar power, in high performance buildings, in bio-fuels, in organic food, in perma-culture. Something beautiful is beginning to happen, and because something good is beginning to happen, there’s an opportunity for us to stand together for it. And the question you have to ask and answer, the way we phrase what you are talking about, is, “How do we build a green economy that’s strong enough to lift people out of poverty? How do we create green pathways out of poverty for people right now who are poor and who are suffering? Can we create jobs for these young people over here that are suffering ten minutes from here? Installing those solar panels so that they can be on their way to becoming electric engineers, solar engineers? Is that a commitment we can make and call people to? Can we say that if we are going to weatherize millions and millions of buildings so that they don’t leak so much energy, can we say that we want to give those young people, those poor kids in rural America who feel they have no choice but methamphetamines or going into the Marine Corps—can we say that we want you to start weatherize these buildings? We want to give you jobs, creating the fuels of the future. Do we have a message that goes beyond the people who can afford to buy a hybrid car?” Because everybody can’t buy a hybrid car; some people are struggling to get bus fare; everybody can’t afford to put solar panels on their house, some people are trying to get a house, trying to find a place to rent. Do they have a place in this movement? Is our heart big enough for them? Can we see this opportunity to turn the economy around and have a new, a second “industrial revolution?” Can we say that this new industrial revolution unlike the last one, the last one hurt the planet, devastated the planet, but it devastated the people, too. Can we imagine a new revolution of industry and enterprise and economic engagement that honors the Earth but uplifts people too? Can we imagine that kind of a dream?
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What I’m saying is that when you really get what it’s going to take to turn this thing around, the politics of inclusion, of solidarity, of love, of empathy—it’s not optional, it’s the only way we’re going to survive. So just like I’ve got to convince this sister that’s she’s got to understand about the polar bears being important, and that’s going to be a journey for her, I’ve got to go through a journey. This is the trick that has been played on you. You have been tricked by Tracy and Lynne Twist and all of them; they have tricked you, hoodwinked you, bamboozled you. You flew all the way around the world to figure out how you were going to transform somebody else. Didn’t you? And I’m going to tell you right now you can ball that up and throw it in the trashcan. This is about your transformation, this is about you stretching beyond where you thought you could ever stretch; you didn’t know that there was any stretch down that way. This is about your transformation; this is about everything you’ve done up until now just being the preface, just being the preface for your real adventure, for your real journey, your shero’s journey, your hero’s journey.
If it was just that you could show up and be heroic and save the polar bears that would be a boring ass movie. That’s not the movie! You show up to be the hero and you discover just like Luke Skywalker, “Wait a minute, the dark side is in me! Wait a minute; my father is the originator of many of the problems that I am now trying to solve. Wait a minute, I can’t just fight now the war monger without, the polluter without, the incarcerator without, the clear cutter without—I’ve got to fight the war monger within. I’ve got to fight the polluter within.”
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I feel you all getting tense about that but let me tell you right now, it’s good news, I’m giving you good news. Why? Once you understand how much programming has gone in to getting you to see the world the way you do, you have a much more realistic sense of the process of unwinding it. And it’s not a workshop. You didn’t get spiritually enlightened at a workshop; you’ve been working on it for 5, 10, 15, 20 years. Right? And you slide back and you push forward. You didn’t understand all this environmental stuff in one day. So there’s going to be, if you are going to fulfill your purpose, if you are to be the people your world needs you to be, who are fully in that space: spiritually fulfilling, ecologically sustainble, and socially just; if you were to do that, then your journey has really just begun. It’s not just about the learning, it’s also going to be about the unlearning. Right? Your blind spots have blind spots on them. Isn’t that the best news possible? ‘Cause otherwise this is real confusing isn’t it? Your blind spots have blind spots, which means you get to have the experience of discovery, of self-discovery that will liberate you and your spirit and your ability to partner with other people. You will be able to say in a couple of years, “I really thought it was you!” Right? “I really thought it was you—and it was me!” Thank goodness, thank goodness. There’s deficiency in the black community, but if all the deficiency lies over there, you have no power. But if you have a deficiency, you can do something about that.
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Community!
And you have the one thing that most people with your insight do not have. Whenever there’s going to be a crisis some people see it early; go all the way back to Greek mythology, to Cassandra. Cassandra foresaw the fall of Troy and she wasn’t quiet about it. Right? She told everybody but it made no difference why? Why? Because she did not have a community, she was not part of a circle that could look at the situation but also look at itself and begin to make those adjustments, to begin to include more and more people to avoid the tragedy. And you see this pattern in history over and over again, individual prophets, individual sages, individual visionaries who will say, “We’ve gotta change course.” You see all through the New Testament and the Old Testament, Isaiah, “We’ve gotta change course!” but they tend to fail. Why? Because it’s that one voice.
Cosmological breakthrough
For the first time on this issue, this tripartite issue of spirit, society and ecology, there’s a community of people. That’s who you are. You represent a breakthrough at a cosmological level. That’s what this is, that’s why I am here. I’m supposed to be on an airplane right now. The reason I am here was that Lynne [Twist] and Tracy and other people (I’m just saying them ‘cause they’re my friends, but I could name a whole bunch of other people), what they are trying to do, what you are now enrolled and committed to do, represents a breakthrough at a cosmological level. Human society, human beings, human society has gotten to a point where there has to be a breakthrough, and it can’t be you in front of your computer screen clicking around. I hate to break it to you, that’s not it. (That can be part of it; we’ll make it 10%-- 20% for the addicts.) But that’s not it, this is it. You guys knowing each other, you guys loving each other, you guys holding each other, you guys helping each other, you guys getting out there and presenting your Symposium and your script and people telling you that it sucks, which is great news.
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‘Comfort zone’
People are always talking about their comfort zones, you ever heard that expression? “This is outside of my comfort zone.” Grow your goddamn comfort zone then, okay? ‘Cause we are running out of time. My suggestion is, grow the comfort zone.
People say that I am hard core about some of this stuff but I know because I have been to Davos, and I’ve sat with Bill Clinton and I’ve sat with Bill Gates and I’ve sat with Tony Blair and I’ve sat with Nancy Pelosi. I’ve sat with all these people who we think are in charge, and they don’t know what to do. Take that in: they don’t know what to do! You think you’re scared? You think you’re terrified? They have the Pentagon’s intelligence, they have every major corporation’s input; Shell Oil that has done this survey and study around the peak oil problem. You think we’ve got to get on the Internet and say, “Peak oil!” because the system doesn’t know about it? They know, and they don’t know what to do. And they are terrified that if they do anything they’ll loose their positions. So they keep juggling chickens and chainsaws and hope it works out just like most of us everyday at work. That’s real, that’s real.
And so I’m hard on people, I try to tell a few jokes, you know, to make it go down easier, but I’m hard on people. But I will tell you why I am hard on people. This is real ball, this is the last chance, this is it. I’m not telling you that; Tracy’s not telling you that. You go to places like I go, and the Pentagon will tell you that. This is real ball and people, for whatever reason, need sometimes a little encouragement. You walk up to that limit of yourself and you want that limit, ‘cause that wasn’t your limit yesterday and you go Whooo! I made it, now let me start telling everybody else what to do. But the goal is over there and every step hurts and every step is challenging and every step is humbling but every step has to be taken or we’re not going to be here.
So what I’m saying to you is, you have to make a friend of the pain. It doesn’t mean you don’t get hugs, doesn’t mean you become a martyr, doesn’t mean you’re self flagellating, no, no, no—you’re precious, you’re beautiful; take care of yourself, love yourself, laugh—but it can’t be only that.
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What’s next: giving up our ignorance
There’s a pathway back to community that we have to walk. I have to give up something, I have to give up my right to be mad at white folks, ‘cause that’s not going to make a difference for my child. But white people have to give up something too, which is their right to stay ignorant about all of this. You have a perfect right to be ignorant about all of this and you’ll be great people, honestly. You could lead big environmental organizations, you could lead spirituality retreats, you could do all kinds of stuff and you will get cookies and congratulations and people will cry at your funeral. You have a perfect right to not care about any of this. There just won’t be any human family left.
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