I didn't wake up yesterday thinking I'd end the day speaking with Alicia Keys. But...
Yeah so... how? Van Jones, a long time friend and mentor, is the man that's how. Yesterday morning Van texts me like, "come meet Alicia Keys at a Congressional briefing tonight." O.K. yeah, I think I can make that.
But then I get there and realize that Van's Dream Corps initiative #Cut50, "a bipartisan effort to safely and smartly reduce our incarcerated population by 50% over the next 10 years," has built such political will that superstars like Alicia Keys are taking whole days to visit children of incarcerated parents in Baltimore by day and motivate congressional aides to press their bosses to support prison reform legislation by night. 15 years ago, I watched Van motivate high school students to realize and use their power to fight criminalization of youth in California. Last night, I watched him apply those same organizing skills to the U.S. congress and the senate. Man, you never know what you are being prepared for.
15 years ago, everything we did was adversarial. We would pick a target and smash on them. Plant a pole and call out the other side. Our equation was us v. them = right v. wrong.
But I never felt at home, and Van didn't seem at home with demonizing the other side. Honestly, all that hatefulness (as justified as hating the other side seemed at times), made me not want to be around activists when the meeting ended or when the action was over. Sometimes I would go out at night and play pool at some dive bar with a bunch of people with dubious political awareness and at times diametrically opposed views on things I worked for on a daily basis. But I enjoyed it because I'd rather be in a space of disagreement with the mutual respect and camaraderie earned over a pool table, than be in a space of total agreement with people working with acrimony and vengeance in mind and heart. I look back now and know that those pool games were preparing me to find common ground with perceived enemies, just as Van is calling us all to do now.
Fast forward and here's Van, once a plant-the-pole polemicist, talking about working with Newt Gingrich and the Koch brothers (look them up) on prison reform. Yesterday I saw first hand what get's attracted to a movement rooted in love and faith in the best of humanity... and that would be Alica Keys and Senator Corey Booker (probably the next Black president, sorry Dr. Carson), Newt Gingrich and the Koch brothers.
I left last night with two core questions about past work in prison reform: How can a movement that seeks to acknowledge and nourish the humanity and potential of the 2 million incarcerated souls in America not also acknowledge and nourish the good in people on the right wing to do the right thing? What progress can come out of a movement rooted in the same dehumanizing fear and hate that it seeks to destroy?
Van can say it better than I ever could. Here's what he texted after last night:
| Those who believe in the "power of love" must learn how to lead those who possess the "love of power." Not just protest them. Not just "hold them accountable." Actually LEAD them. And you can't lead anyone you don't love. They won't follow. And that's the hypocrisy or contradiction: those who profess to believe in the power of love sometimes don't love ENOUGH. I say: "when it gets harder to love, LOVE HARDER." - Van Jones Van used to always tell us to "prepare to win." Act like you will get what you are working for. So if we are working for a better world full of people doing better, we have to do better now to be ready for the better days coming. On the personal tip, that's what I'm up to, processing what I've gained over the past 40 years in preparation for getting what I want over the next 40 years. Last night was a big reminder to get ready and stay ready. By 40, you learn to prepare well because you never know what you are preparing for... it just might be victory. |
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