"This time we need everybody" - or do we?

4/16/09
“This time we need everybody”... this is a phrase I’ve heard used by my good friend Jim Deming; pastor, philosopher, environmental educator and activist, when he’s twice been a guest on the show. He says this in reference to the latest wave of “green” hitting the shores of our consciousness (too often in the form of frightening statistics and apocalyptic prophesies which, even if true, can paralyze rather galvanize behavioral change).
In a recent filming (airing all this week), my friend Nell Levin also used this phrase, although in a slightly different context. She (Coordinator of Tennessee Alliance for Progress) and Dr. Sekou Franklin (political science professor at MTSU) came on the show to talk about establishing a “Green Jobs Corp.” here in Nashville / Davidson County, which would fuse two very fundamental social and structural challenges, that of poverty elimination and the creation of an economy based on sustainable choices and clean energy, in a meaningful and effective way. While this is one of the most exciting initiatives (largely inspired by the work of Van Jones) to come down the pipeline recently, and while I agree that we need to build sustainability in this country in a way that cuts decisively across racial, economic and other barriers, I do not believe that “we need EVERYBODY” - in the literal sense - or that such an idea is even attainable. I just think we need enough people who see the truth and are willing to go to the mat for it. Change is an ongoing process, with few absolutes except that it will continue to occur, whether “everybody” likes it or not.
There was a time, not so long ago in the great scheme of things, when our country engaged in a civil war over the abolition of slavery, because enough people (including our president of the time, Abraham Lincoln) saw that the enslavement of another human being, of ANY race or culture, was absolutely and unequivocally wrong – a fact made clear by our own Declaration of Independence nearly 100 years earlier, which stated that “All men are created equal…”. Not everyone agreed – but the truth prevailed, nonetheless, because enough were willing to fight for it. Now we have one of the finest men I’ve seen in my lifetime occupying the White House as our President, who also happens to be a black man. While clear evidence of racism still exists in our society, and is still problematic for many, it is no longer the prevailing norm or standard by which society operates. There is obviously still much work to be done, but look how far we’ve come! Indeed, change continues…
About 60 years later, women in the United States won the right to vote when, after years of brave and heroic struggle by numerous leaders like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton, who formed the National Woman Suffrage Movement, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, guaranteeing that the right to vote could not be denied based on gender. Many (of both genders) did not agree, but once again enough people saw the truth and were willing to fight for it. Now it is the accepted norm here, which no right-thinking U.S. citizen would question. Other cultures’ ideologies run the full spectrum on this issue, and here again we still are very far from attaining the agreement of “everybody” concerning what is right. But, viewing change as a continuum, I believe we have come an enormously long way.
So it is with the “green” movement. To expect or insist upon full consensus is to be guaranteed disappointment, as evidenced by the complete lack of interest of about 90% of the students who passed by my table yesterday at an Earth Day mini-fest at Nashville State Community College, shattering to pieces my illusion that “most young people really understand and care deeply about this stuff”. They liked the magician, the belly dancer, and the free food the best. Me and my little show were fairly irrelevant to the majority. Oh well. A few took interest. My hope remains undiminished. I know there will be more next time. And I know that laws that support clean energy and sustainability by facilitating the kind of economic and infrastructural changes we desperately need will come into being, as enough of us become willing to fight for them. In this sense, “everybody” is merely a euphemistic, dreamy notion not required to fulfill the vision.