Stories I Forgot I Wrote, Lessons I Forgot I Learned
A year or so ago, a friend (and truly luminous Portland Public School teacher) invited me to speak to the year’s high school inductees to the National Honor Society. Speaking to those kids and their families was such a gift—but I’d completely forgotten about it! Anyway, I was looking for something in my documents tonight and opened up a draft of the speech. After reading through, I felt compelled to share an excerpt here:
…I’m 36. Throughout my “career” I’ve been a political organizer working on major causes, a major gifts fundraiser engaging with some of the richest people in this country, a digital product creator who won awards for engagement on the Internet, a publisher at an independent media organization, and a strategist on projects like the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate Map and Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Report (especially relevant right now). The work I have done has always challenged me, and I am proud of my professional arc. But what I’ve learned about success and meaning can be discovered anywhere, as long as you know where to look.
You all have arrived here tonight, at this National Honor Society Induction Ceremony, because in one way or another, you have participated in your own making. You are interested and able to be agents in shaping your experience and the environment of those around you. This curiosity and agency, this bent towards action, these are critical skills for conducting an integrated life in our current reality. Everywhere we turn, authoritarianism is forcing its way in. Putin in Russia and Ukraine. Settlements in Palestine. Police brutality here in the US. Google and Facebook pushing out courageous whistleblowers who are advocating for the equitable and transparent development of technology. More than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in consideration across the country, including right next door in Idaho.
All of these initiatives have one thing in common. Regardless of their aim—power for an individual, control for a group—they result in fear and destruction and their success relies on silence and inaction from people like you and me. When you’re new somewhere, it’s easy to fall back and be quiet. To not know what you can contribute or if your ideas will be respected. I say this because what you need to know is that yes, it is important to learn from those beyond you when you enter a new situation, but it is equally important to be yourself. To be vocal. To be agents of change and advocates for equity in the smallest of moments.
You are not the leaders of tomorrow. You are the visionaries of today. Your ideas, interests, and perspectives on what matters shape our world today. In boardrooms and brainstorms, there are executives trying to figure out how to best serve this generation, how to capture your attention and keep it. As leaders, in order to be successful in participating in a future that includes and respects you, you’ll need to know where to look for direction. And that place is within yourself.
The tech I mentioned earlier: TikTok, Insta, Twitter, these are incredible tools that democratize the voices we hear and the perspectives that shape our lives. They’re the reason why we know so much about what’s happening with the human rights violations and atrocities happening around the globe. But they were not designed to bring down governments and fuel protests. They were designed to gather data and accumulate power by grabbing your attention and holding onto it for as long as possible. When tech has our attention, it has the power to shape the future. To be an effective leader who can endure the kind of relentless challenges ahead, you will need to protect your attention. You will need to be able to hear your own voice.
Lately I’ve been
…reading essays from Zadie Smith’s Feel Free and Toni Morrison’s The Source of Self Regard. I wrote a poem last week about those feelings, that source, about my grandmother’s hands. About grief and my own voice. These things, including the draft I posted above, are all related. Sometimes I forget that I’ve ever thought something before—and then I find an old draft and am reminded just how cyclical our feelings and thoughts and challenges are.
It’s a heartbreaking time to be alive. It’s an unbelievably unstable time to be a worker in this world. It could not be more important to each of us that we know where we come from, or that we hear our inner voices. A future worth living for depends on it. Here’s the poem:
Gramma’s Hands
My grandmother’s hands had knobby knuckles. They were steady and smooth and I can still feel them on the back of my neck with a warm washcloth.
Did you wash behind your ears?
My grandmother’s hands playing a key on the piano. One or two notes. One or two fingers. Her pointer. Those knobby knuckles. Those smooth hands.
You play so beautifully! It is such a wonder that you’re learning to play!
My grandmother’s hands on the steering wheel, waiting for a break in traffic to make a left onto Main.
There’s always a break. You just have to wait.
My grandmother’s hands in the sink, washing dishes at the window. Passing a plate to dry.
Many hands make light work.
My hands. Reaching into the water. Dipping the cloth. Washing behind my daughter’s ears. Gently, her lobes.
As she giggles and squirms, I’m back in the bath, back at the piano, back in the car, back in the kitchen. Thinking about simple things. Wondering about a different time. Waiting for the break. Watching for her light.
— Inspired by felt reflections on My Grandmother’s Hands, Resmaa Menakem