What Does It Mean to Love One Another Right Now?

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"I'll tell you something very strange about oppression, a very simple metaphor: If you put me in jail, you've got to have someone to keep me in jail. That means there are two prisoners, you and me.
Our situation is precisely that.

What is crucial here is that we are confronted with the results of it. Not me more than you.
White people have oppressed me, yes indeed, but they have destroyed themselves in the act.
That's the crisis.
What do you do? Out of your oppression of yourself?
That's the crisis.

What do you do with your guilt?
You do with your guilt what anybody who hopes to grow up does with his guilt: you recognize that you'll be guilty until you drop dead. So that's classified, that's taken care of.
Then what you do is operate despite it.

Guilt is easy. Responsibility is hard. And action is even harder.
Because it does mean, for you and for me
(and I'm talking to you as a white woman and me as a black man):
In order for us to establish this cross-fertilization,
or rather to redeem this cross-fertilization, because it's already happened,
you will have to give up many things. And so will I.
This is true of any real connection.
People modify each other, that's what's called love."

- James Baldwin


**For support and guidance in seeing into yourself and your conditioning more deeply, and in taking responsibility for your participation going forward, I highly recommend this free resource.

Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/