Shedding hypocrisy: How do we live out our values in a woke world?
How are you practicing what you preach — whatever you preach, and who exactly is listening? — Audre Lorde
I come from an evangelical tradition devoted to the deep rooted idea that the solution to the world’s ills is personal salvation for every one of us. I once had a speaker at a youth conference snap his fingers every second he spoke to indicate the death of a human somewhere who would go to Hell because none of us had saved his soul. The idea that the world is in need of fixing has been grafted onto my bones from the very beginning.
While religion has left my life, the personal responsibility I feel for the unfairness of the world has not. As someone who lives with anxiety and depression, the enormity of the social problems we face can be overwhelming at times. Crippling. In the current cultural ruptures we are living through, I see many people like me trying to grab a rope out of our feelings of sadness and powerlessness. I see many of us realizing our professed values- equality, safety, social welfare, food and shelter for everyone, the end of exploitation- do not match our lived values. Yes, most of us are not the policy makers that create the systems we live inside. Yes, we each have the ability to create a world where our values come to life and exist for everyone in tangible ways.
Listen to people who are different than you.
I am struck with sadness over and over by family members and friends who simply have no desire to learn anymore. For many, the idea that personal education stops after you get your diploma (either high school or college) is deeply ingrained. But if we truly want to create a world of equal opportunity, we must create a shared reality with the oppressed.
The history and worldview developed in our schools is not designed to give you the whole truth. It has been crafted and laid out by people with a vested interest in the status quo. No one is saying that you’ve ingested only blatant lies, but there is definitely truths you’ve never been told. Reading books, articles, essays, etc. written by people who do not look like you and have lived a very different life than you helps you to understand the truth of our nation. That truth can be infuriating, but we cannot fix problems we don’t understand. We cannot understand if we do not learn.
Hold your representatives accountable.
Because of the structures in place to suppress voters, white people, particularly wealthy white people hold unbalanced sway over those in office. There has been a cultural taboo around criticizing elected officials or giving our opinion (unless you are a wealthy donor). Ask yourself who benefits from this lack of accountability? If we are not exercising our right to contact our representatives and tell them our opinion on policy or our right to vote in new leadership, we are not using the tools available to us to make democracy work for everyone.
Listen to the organizations for the oppressed in your area. They have policy experts who are constantly telling the public what they need. Our job is to amplify those needs by giving voice to their concerns with our council members, our Congress members, our bosses. In Spanish we say, “Tu lucha es mi lucha.” “Your fight is my fight.” If we want to make our values come to life, policy is the mechanism that does that for us at the base level in our society. We have the ability to help shape it. Vote for representatives who are listening to the entire community. Hold those already elected accountable to turn their position into change.
Put your money where your mouth is.
80 million Americans are living right now with food insecurity and hunger. Millions are without healthcare. I am not trying to use the starving African children line on you, not because I don’t ascribe to some aspects of utilitarianism, but because studies show the argument doesn’t work. Instead I am empowering you with the reality that you at any level of wealth have the ability to change the way money is dispersed in our country.
Donate to food banks. Donate to mutual aid funds giving direct relief to communities impacted by COVID. Understand that $10 for a shirt you don’t need could feed someone and start to see those things as equivalent transactions. No one is asking that you deny yourself your needs. When we truly desire to live a value-driven life, we simply have to start re-evaluating those needs.
When you save money in the store, understand that someone is paying the price for your discount. If you can afford it, use your money to buy full price goods and services that give you transparency into where they come from. Buy from sources who pay their workers well and are not exploiting poverty to create more wealth for themselves. If you can wait for something to come in, avoid paying Amazon for something you could buy from a smaller seller. Understand choosing these practices is a way to vote with your dollar to end exploitation.
Ask questions about the way things work.
As we shed our ignorance, we find more opportunities to shed our hypocrisy. Exploitation in its biggest forms exists because every day people don’t ask too many questions. Who’s making the clothes you’re wearing and for how much? Where is our military fighting and for what reasons? What are we as a nation spending our money on? Sure, the world is filled with random chance, but collectively we have a lot of say in the foundations we build. When we ask foundational, uncomfortable questions we dig up new directions for our conscience and for the policy we vote on and put into public view.
Our ability to change the world lies in the collective force of individual responsibility and action. As social media takes over our lives, we have become better at talking about oppression, but as a society we have taken only tiny concrete steps toward eradicating it. Shedding our hypocrisy in a woke world requires that we do more than nod our heads in agreement. If we truly want a home where we can all be safe, free and equal, we’ve gotta start building.
