If you’re ready to ask yourself the real, hard questions – and if you want to arm yourself with the language to speak truth to power – I strongly recommend you watch the keynote speech Anand Giridharadas gave at the The Aspen Institute last week.
If you don’t know Anand, he is a journalist and author, most recently of The True American, the amazing story of a Bangladeshi immigrant, Raisuddin Bhuiyan, who was shot in the face by a white Texan, nearly died, and then fought to keep his shooter from getting the death penalty.
Anand’s talk pushes all of us to move beyond accepting change that comes from the system and, in so doing, preserves the system. He asks us to ask ourselves, and those around us, whether generosity is enough or if what we seek is justice. And, if it is justice we seek, how much are we willing to do and how much are we willing to give up to get it?
Here’s an excerpt that gets to the heart of Anand’s talk, the full transcript of the talk, and the video is below.
…we are at risk of confusing generosity towards those victims with justice for those victims. Generosity is a win-win. Justice, often, is not.
The winners of our age don’t enjoy the idea that some of them might actually have to lose, to sacrifice, for justice to be done. In Aspen you don’t hear a lot of ideas involving the privileged and powerful actually being in the wrong, and needing to surrender their status and position for the sake of justice. We talk a lot here about giving more. We don’t talk about taking less. We talk a lot here about what we should be doing more of. We don’t talk about what we should be doing less of.
Once again you’ve posted something that makes me question what I stand for at my core, and what Action Pledge I will take as a result. This talk pierced me. Anand eloquently surfaces and crystalizes an internal struggle I’ve felt (and ignored) for a long time. I can no longer ignore it. Damn it.
You and me both, Jim.