Not the past, again.
When it comes to reviewing events from the past, people tend to say, “Why bother looking at the past? What happened in the past has no relevance today. Leave the past in the past and let’s focus on today and the future.”
Honestly, this sounds really good, however if we only look at today without carefully understanding how yesterday’s tentacles may still be intertwined with our present, we may miss vital information that can affect the present and future.
For example:
When buying a used car, are we curious to know if that vehicle was involved in an automobile accident? Superficially the car may look and run great, and that may be what matters most to us, but can knowing the vehicle’s history specifically target possible unseen issues in the future?
When being treated by a medical professional, do we want them to ask about our medical history or should they just focus on how we look today and say, “Your history doesn’t matter. Let’s just concentrate on making you feel good today. Here’s a prescription to ease your pain.”
When purchasing a home, would we be curious to know when the home was built, the roof replaced, the septic tank emptied, or if the home was affected by a flood? Would we want to know the history of crimes in the neighborhood? Or would we say, “Don’t bring-up any of that stuff. Let’s just paint the house blue, plant pretty flowers, and make sure the fridge is full.”
Taking time to pause the momentum of forward movement to redirect and look at the past sounds unproductive and daunting. We get it. There are things in the past we would rather not look at again. We don’t want to be reminded of mistakes we made, but if looking back becomes a welcomed resource to improve and increase our depth of understanding, then the decisions we make will reflect the kind of courageous and creative leadership needed for the people of today and tomorrow.
As we delve deeper into serving our clients at Ripple, we are excited to witness their honest engagement with the realities of their past, especially when it comes to systemic racism and other forms of oppression, and making decisions today to redirect the strong (sometimes invisible) undercurrents with hopes of courageously redesigning the future.
Here are resources to begin revisiting the past within a systemic context and ways to begin applying this newfound awareness:
I’m Still Here by Austin Channing Brown
Black Girl Speaks; a podcast
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X Kendi
The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Code Switch; a podcast through NPR
