We Are the Ones

[bicker]

It was the poet June Jordan who wrote "We are the ones we have been waiting for." Sweet Honey in the Rock turned those words into a song. Hearing this song, I have witnessed thousands of people rise to their feet in joyful recognition and affirmation. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for because we are able to see what is happening with a much greater awareness than our parents or grandparents, our ancestors, could see. This does not mean we believe, having seen the greater truth of how all oppression is connected, how pervasive and unrelenting, that we can "fix" things. But some of us are not content to have a gap in opportunity and income that drives a wedge between rich and poor, causing the rich to become ever more callous and complacent and the poor to become ever more wretched and humiliated. Not willing to ignore starving and brutalized children. Not willing to let women be stoned or mutilated without protest. Not willing to stand quietly by as farmers are destroyed by people who have never farmed, and plants are engineered to self-destruct. Not willing to disappear into our flower gardens, Mercedes Benzes or sylvan lawns. We have wanted all our lives to know that Earth, who has somehow obtained human beings as her custodians, was also capable of creating humans who could minister to her needs, and the needs of her creation. We are the ones.
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~ Alice Walker

 

[crazyforgoofy]

Alice Walker is a very wise and well-spoken human. Thank you for posting.

 

[Michelle67]

I like Alice Walker. Don't like the One who swiped June Jordan's phrase, though... but I agree wholeheartedly that it is up to us to stop waiting and be the agent of change, in small ways, every day, to create the world as we would have it be.

 

[nataliesdaddy]

~ Alice Walker

Wow, now I know for sure alice walker is an idiot.