Hello, my name is . . . you

The revolution will be subsidized

This is the revolution. The revolution is now. The revolution is happening everywhere. The revolution has a brand. The brand is you. You are the brand. We are the revolution. Be an agent for change. Demand human rights. Demand equality. Expect dignity. Work. Be a work place revolutionary. Demand pay for your work. Be ethical. Be a carpenter revolutionary. Be a steelworker revolutionary. Practice revolutionary sex. Be a revolutionary parent. Be a child of the revolution. Revolutionize your parents. Talk. Talk and the revolution will be heard. Be and the revolution will be seen. Create and the revolution will be felt. Organize and the revolution will be televised. It will be broadcast to every Wonderbread household and orphan in Calcutta. Demand global human rights. Recognize that the revolution is right now and only right now. There is no dawn of epiphany. There is no rallying cry. There is only watercooler banter and sweet nothingnesses.

The timetable

Yesterday, an amazing day by all accounts, I drove to a major research hospital in the Midwest and had a meeting about how to realize the dream of having a comprehensive cancer center in the local metropolitan area. I left that meeting and went to the afternoon sessions of Creating Change, the Gay and Lesbian National Taskforce’s annual conference. I sat in on a workshop about sexual freedom as a fundamental human right. I looked around at the room it was filled with amazing people. During a break I stood at the edge of the conference main floor and watched a group of highschool students point and laugh and stare. I realized that for many of them it was a life-changing moment and that their awkwardness was created by a dangerous lack of honest communication about all things in their young lives. I left and went to a lecture about feminism and hip hop which sadly adhered to first and second-wave feminist ideals, “please see me as a woman, a strong black woman, not as a sexual being, “ blah. I went to a small concert, two people, then one person, Anni Rossi.

This is about glaciers. This is about glaciers and flattening. Flattening where you are standing and what you know. So if I am running errands and you are an island, I would like to say goodbye in anticipation.

I am you, you are me. We are not the same. Let’s work together to be singly happy.

The bottom line

Let’s end the discussion we have been having and start a new one. Let’s stop pretending this isn’t about money. It is. We live in a world of currency. Access to money is access to the world.

I work at a land-grant institution. We need money to empower our youth with knowledge and skills that will allow them to further empower themselves with jobs and money. The afore mentioned revolution must be subsidized whether it happens at the individual level, the local level or the regional/national/global level. Individuals need money. Groups need money. The world needs money.

Let’s start talking about how we balance an individuals right to self-determination as determined to a large part by money with the need to create institutions for the public good that are capable of effecting changes that we as individuals cannot effect because said institutions are capable of extraordinary wealth.