Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [148]
This is the only way programs will change a status quo of inequality. Time and time again, through the years of working with Bahia Street, I have become frustrated, thinking Rita or people who work with her were doing things too slowly, that if I could just go in and do something, it would be so much easier, the project would move forward more quickly; things would just get done. That is natural because both Rita and I see things from the perspective of the cultures that formed us. But I resist the temptation to interfere; instead I remain a sounding board or brainstorming partner—and only when asked and only with Rita. And always, eventually, she and her staff come up with a solution to the issue that is not only different from, but also much more effective for the local situation than anything I could have dreamed. What this means is that the Center building is being constructed as a part of the community, and so too is the project’s infrastructure. Deep change is a process, shifting and growing within a community. Anything else will merely be a facade that will crumble in the first storm.
I hear poverty consistently defined as a lack of money, calculations of despair measured by the number of dollars a day a person might earn. Yet hunter-gatherer societies, if they are intact, may have no money at all; but they are not “poor.” Instead, poverty is the destruction of a society or community, the destruction of self-respect and contentment. Beyond natural disaster, outside manmade forces are what generally create poverty. These outside forces range from war to colonialism to displacement of communities for corporate exploitation of local resources—even to outside-imposed education systems that do not hold local learning in esteem. Yet, this dynamic also means that informed outsiders who listen and act with respect can have a place in supporting locals to reclaim their communities and achieve equality in their efforts to do so.
This is something all of us can do even in our own communities. If you are reading this book, you have some power in your own society by the mere fact of your literacy and your willingness to consider such issues. We all have the power to effect change, even if we feel powerless, and even if we don’t feel we have the time. We can change the world by the way we listen to others, putting aside our preconceptions of who another might be; by letting go of our fear of what we do not understand; by remaining curious; and by staying alert to personal feelings of superiority and cultivating, in their place, a desire to learn from others. It is in our humanity that we find equality. In equality we will find peace.
Like Bahia Street, this book does not fit neatly into a genre. It is neither a memoir nor a story of derring-do. It is certainly not a hero’s tale of a white American “savior” single-handedly changing the world. It is a testament to the power of change, an account of the voices of others, their knowledge, their truth, and their perspective on their own community. It was not a story immediately embraced by mainstream publishers. We chose to self-publish the book three years ago because we felt the story was so important. And since then, the book has touched many lives. The responses of readers have inspired me. And now, editor Lorri Hagman and the University of Washington Press have shown their belief in a book that no one else dared consider. Their courage has kept this Dance alive.
Margaret Willson
Seattle
February 2010