Gerald Dillenbeck | + Follow Poet |
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Planning For Grace

Last night I arrived very late
for a GRACE planning team meeting.
GRACE's mission advocates against
all things racist,
whether systemic
or the normal chaos of antipathy
and sin 
against everyday non-violent win-win
choices
policies
procedures
positions
platforms political and economic
sacred and secular
sociological and neurological.

I stepped into discussion of a thesis
that all policies are either racist
or anti-racist.

We were trying out various policies
to see if we could discover which they were.
This reminds me of a popular radio show
outing "HIDDEN RACISM!"

This discernment process
also reminds me of a hiring incident
in our Southern Region
In which a job description
with preference for academic credentials
over indigenous democratic leadership experience
led to hurt feelings of being disrespected
and concerns about systemic white male privilege
within our Unitarian Universalist Association
for egalitarian
and interdependent compassion.

Are budgeting procedures
that begin with authority of last year's status quo
and are then incrementally nuanced
through recommendations of currently empowered authority figures,
like Treasurers
and CFOs
and Board of Invested,
often age Infested,
Directors,
racist or anti-racist?

Is prejudice just about policies
that must be bilaterally explicated
as healthy or unhealthy for inclusive empowerment,
or is white male privilege also hidden in our procedures,
our therapeutic proposals,
our strategic plans
to do more of the ZeroSum same,
whatever that may competitively be?

What about all our communications,
verbal and non-verbal,
personal and public?

What about all our investments
of time
and money
and positive or negative 
or ambivalently uncommitted attitude?

And are all these things
just race privileged or also anti-racist egalitarian?
Or might they also be
egopatriarchal or ecofeminist,
ageist or multigenerationally inclusive,
nonbinary-phobic or pansexual,
aristocratic or democratic,
communal or capitalistic,
cooperative or competitive,
polycultural or monocultural,
WinWin or LoseLose,
regenerative or degenerative,
empowering or disempowering,
NonZeroSum or ZeroSum,
RightBrain prominent or LeftBrain dominant,
non-violent or violent?

I can hardly wait to read more
about this thesis or antithesis
to find out what I may have missed and not missed
all my racist or anti-racist years.

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