I-and-Thou

[marmar]

from OnTheCommons.org:




I-and-Thou
Kim Klein on how theologian Martin Buber can help us think anew about racism

By Kim Klein


I-Thou

The headlong stream is termed violent
But the river bed hemming it in is
Termed violent by no one.
The storm that bends the birch trees
Is held to be violent
But how about the storm
That bends the backs of the roadworkers?
—Bertolt Brecht, “On Violence”


Brecht’s poem is a wonderful metaphor for understanding the concept of structural oppression. The image of a riverbed actually being more responsible for the danger of the river than the water itself is a call for a paradigm shift in how we address the structures of oppression. Today I would like to explore a possible commons view of a way to begin to deconstruct structural racism.

Those of us who post on Kim Klein and the Commons use the concept originally put forward by David Bollier of “rough social equity” as the end goal of our commons work. This concept leads immediately to issues of poverty, income inequality, corporate power, tax justice and so on. We have looked at any number of economic models for addressing economic inequity. Economic inequity cannot be separated from racism since it is so abundantly clear that all forms of economic injustice disproportionately affect people of color.

However, it is also clear that ending economic injustice will not, de facto, end racism. So it is worth spending time to try think about a commons view of racism separate from economic oppression. “Rough social equity” calls for a transformation of the structures of how inhabitants of a society view each other. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/i-and-thou