Slice of Life: Be Careful of We

Tuesdays are for slicing about life. Join us at Two Writing Teachers!

Opening note: Last week I wrote about personal pronouns, and I will reference them at the end of this post. 

Over the weekend, I picked up Shawna Coppola's new book, Writing, Redefined. I keep meaning to read it, and I had some free time. However, I didn't get far. In her introduction, she mentioned Ava DuVernay's documentary, 13th, and here's what Shawna said: (if you haven't seen it), "please cancel all plans, put your phone on silent mode, and remedy the situation immediately (xxi)."

So I did. I had just watch When They See Us, another work directed by Ava DuVernay, so I was especially intrigued. That series had been incredibly hard for me to watch, especially the final segment, but it has stayed with me, and I've been convinced more than ever that any and all work I am doing along the lines of equity is vitally important.

13th addresses many aspects of the inequities of incarceration, and the stories and statistics are devastating. I watched with a lump in my throat and a pit in my stomach, my own privilege pounding, my lack of awareness and ability to overlook inconvenient truths and events pounding as well. 

At our equity council meeting on Thursday night, I brought up the movie with one of the facilitators who had also been at the conference I wrote about last week, hearing the same message I heard and wrote about insofar as personal pronouns are concerned. 

I brought up 13th with her, and she had also seen it. "It's pretty powerful, right?" she said. 

"How are we not talking about that movie more?" I said to her.

She and I had talked about the importance of we versus I as well, and she touched my shoulder. "Careful of we," she said.  

Point taken! I  need to figure out how to know better, see more, join the conversations that are happening about the layers and layers of inequity. 

I'm trying.