A riot is the language of the unheard
I usually keep my politics separate from these messages, and I’ve thought hard, as a white woman, about my motives and qualifications in writing this. But I am watching the unfolding events in the US with such horror, and seeing their parallels in the systemic racism and injustice both here in Australia and around the world, that saying nothing feels like saying it doesn’t matter. And it does. So however imperfectly, here is my way of saying my silence is not acceptance.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
It’s fractal.
The self-sabotage an individual engages in, when parts of them have unheard needs.
The “bad behaviour” of a child with no other way to express their distress.
Conflict in an organisation when there is trammelling of unheard and unmet needs.
All the way out to the national and global forces we are seeing erupting around the world right now.
It’s not about condoning the violence. It’s that it’s only by having the courage to understand where it comes from that we stand a chance of fixing those problems.
We need to listen to each other.
We need to be willing to take stock of our own part in the systems at play, and to hear the parts of ourselves that are blocking us from hearing others.
We need to be truly present to the full humanity of each other person on this planet.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
“Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. ... But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.”
Martin Luther King, Jr The Other America speech, 1967
https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm
Take care of yourself and others,
Madeleine Shaw
I work with clients from executive leadership teams to the front line, helping them to make clearer decisions about what they want, and adapt faster and more easily to change and transition. I use deep purpose as a key to unlock powerful thriving in work and life.
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