Cyrus in a community nativity scene
By Cyrus Reed
Transitions can be hard. If you’re the President, you might pretend you didn’t really lose, or if you are an Attorney General of a certain-large-state you might sue the US Supreme Court and demand that votes in four randomly selected states be thrown out in the name of Democracy. Not sure why, but you might!
Jokes aside, I have been engaged in my own transition of sorts the last couple of years and I am about to embark on another one. It brings with it some trepidation, but I feel pretty optimistic about it overall, which is good given what a strange long trip 2020 has been.
Almost two years ago, I received a call that I was being asked to step in as “interim director” for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club under some unforeseen circumstances. Having done it a couple of times before, I accepted, but my goal as “interim” was not to take on the job long-term. I took this role to help guide the Chapter through a transition where we would be in a better position financially to hire someone relatively young, energetic and able to lead the Lone Star Chapter into a new era. I did not quite anticipate the challenges that 2020 would pose, but here we are. In January, we expect to have a new person take over the realm of the chapter as Director, which has been around since 1965 (coincidentally, the year I was born). Hopefully we might have an official announcement very, very soon!
Now back to 2020. It has been a doozy. First there is the pandemic, which as I write this has claimed 300,000 lives in the US and more than 1.6 million throughout the world. It has impacted folks I go to church with, my wife’s family in Nicaragua, friends that are doctors and nurses. It’s impacted all of us at the Chapter as we have adjusted to work from home, school from home, vacation from home. And it’s certainly affected all of you, too.
The tragedy of course has been the failed response of our political leaders to take it as seriously as they should have, especially in the first months. But more than the deaths, and sickness, and lost jobs, and increased homelessness has been the obvious lesson that the disease was not equal in its treatment of folks. Those who could not physically distance, like hospital workers, factory workers of all kinds,farm laborers, those who work in the service industry, were much harder hit.
And those facing the ravages of pollution, especially those who live in fenceline communities next to industry in Texas, have been more susceptible to catching or even dying from the virus. And indeed, COVID has undeniably and disproportionately harmed Black and Brown and Indigenous communities.
The government’s pathetic response to COVID-19 has illustrated just how society is structurally racist, with lack of insurance and health care, lack of economic and educational opportunity, and exposure to pollutants all disproportionately impacting some folks more than others.
Racism is real, present and prolific in America. We, especially white people, must all acknowledge that America was founded on white supremacy and is actively anti-Black, which is evident our shameless practice of police brutality against Black people, which sparked global Black Lives Matter protests this summer after the murder of George Floyd.
Coming to recognize our own privilege and participation in our racist society is not easy. It’s easy to put a “Blacks Lives Matter” sign in your yard, but it’s harder to think about how your own actions contribute to institutional racism. Earlier this year, the Lone Star Chapter contracted Undoing White Supremacy Austin to help staffers and key volunteers embark on an “unlearning” journey so that we can better center anti-racism in our attitude and work.
The Lone Star Chapter is committed to confronting the racist society we are living in, and hopefully build a more just one. The Chapter and the wider Sierra Club will continue to work on our own history and actions and hopefully improve as an organization. Read more about our commitment on our anti-racism resource page.
I want to close on 2020 with a sense of compassion. We must move beyond sympathy and empathy. It can’t stop there. Compassion, for me, means taking our feelings and moving towards action.
We must acknowledge the ways we are and have been complicit in white supremacy, and we must take action to change ourselves and our society. As an organization, there will be opportunities in 2021 for us to do better and work harder for racial justice. A legislative session where democracy, voting, and local control will come under attack and need to be defended, but also a session with the chance to do much better on COVID-relief, community protections from pollution, and creating a clean energy economy (see our legislative priorities here). Opportunities to press a new President with demands for real reform in policing, health care, climate action, and environmental protections. Opportunities to participate in unlearning circles and improving our own selves.
In the end, I do think “Love Trumps Hate,” as people say. Or at least... it should. Anger directed at injustice has its place to get us to act. But as we enter the new year, let’s use our collective compassion to motivate us to fight for racial justice, the environment, and our democracy.