White Supremacy, quaker notes, sustainability, privilege

[elainegrey]

I've just bought Layla F. Saad's Me and White Supremacy workbook. I'm happy to say all the copies at Powells were gone, as i imagine other people like me finding it hard to speak to the violence against black people that continues month after month.

https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/summer-2019/you-and-white-supremacy-a-challenge-to-educators

I found myself bemoaning "the divisions in the country" at meeting, and i realized as i said it how it painted over the part that distressed me. I realize it seems to underscore the violence against property and not the violence against specific people. "Divisions" was the shorthand i used to refer to the "them" in my mind: the white supremacists all geared up for a race war, but it can be just as easily interpreted as anyone else's us and them -- or the us and them someone believes i have in mind.

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's 1967 "The Other America" speech at Stanford University

I was going to use the tag "white privilege" for this writing, but reflected on privilege's etymology from "private law." The injustice of racism is embedded in layers of legal practice in this country (where i include juries in the practice): it seems far beyond unwritten rules. I'll go with "White Supremacy" and take a step of being uncomfortable.

--== ∞ ==--

Exhaustion in sourcing anything and everything -- is it environmentally just, racially just, just to labor? -- plus the COVID-19 risks.... Well, i suppose the choice to fold in my personal safety as a function is a privilege. Our plastics use has increased with the bagging choices. Weighing my safety against plastic jugs for water (or the reusable tank i filled at the market with the distilled water needed for Christine's cpap), we discussed getting jugs instead of going into the market. I should write the market and ask whether they can take a tank.

I did ask if they could take my LateJuly packaging. They used to have a dropoff, but, pandemic. I just checked with terracycle. You can purchase a box plus shipping plus sorting plus recycling for between 5¢ and 8¢ a cubic inch. I wonder how quickly we could fill the large box. I can also print a free label and mail the LateJuly bags at LateJuly's expense.

--== ∞ ==--

The threshing session yesterday went well. A little hard to keep people talking about their own needs, wants, concerns and not going straight to solutions, but it more or less worked. There is definite interest in a hybrid solution although i don't think folks appreciate the logistical challenge of keeping a group meeting in person equitably connected with a group not in person. But we can discuss that when people get there.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Our plastics use has increased with the bagging choices. Weighing my safety against plastic jugs for water (or the reusable tank i filled at the market with the distilled water needed for Christine's cpap), we discussed getting jugs instead of going into the market.

My plastic use of everything has increased. We used to refill water jugs at the grocery but that was one of the first things that was discontinued. I never used the water, Mike did for drinking, and he's just been using aired out tap water since. I can't take my reusable bags either, which is doubly frustrating because they were so much more useful when bagging due to their space and their flat bottoms. Plus I also had bags for fruits and vegetables. And now since it's takeout only we're stuck with whatever packaging the restaurant uses which is rarely compostable.

[elainegrey]

This, plus the changes our local recycling has had in the face of the changing market for recyclables makes me wonder if i should go ahead and pay for the sorting and recycling from terracycle.