Sappiness and Changing the World

By Leland Dela Cruz (Program Director, Development Studies).

I think the phlegm makes me sappy (of course, that is just an excuse). Last night it was Last Holiday. Today it was Michelle Obama’s speech. If you have a chance, watch it. It isn’t as universal as Barack Obama’s Wesleyan Commencement Address but it was nice for its own reasons.

One thing that stuck among many things is when she said that the Democratic Convention was being held on two anniversaries: the anniversary of the day when women were given the right to vote (that’s the day Hillary will speak) and the anniversary of the day Martin Luther King, Jr gave his “I Have A Dream” Speech (That’s when Barack Obama will give his speech; all those who gave that speech in high school, raise your hands).

And she spoke of Barack speaking of how we allow ourselves to live in the world as it is instead of working towards a world as it could be.

And I said to myself, yes, those two moments did change the world as it is. Women given the right to vote. Blacks fighting off institutional segregation. And I said to myself that yes, it is a good reminder that the world CAN BE CHANGED.

And that’s the magic of the Obama’s. Change we CAN believe in. YES, we CAN.

Win or lose, thanks Michelle.

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On a related note but a different tone, I have always believed that to change things, we need to understanding things as they are. That’s been a basic philosophy in my teaching.

This morning, I realized that we also must study how things have been changed, how change has been done on purpose, and not just micro-level change but macro-level change, social movements. Must check with devman faculty. (I am sure that all that begins with an a analysis of the situation but goes beyond it)

Last night, I was thinking, people don’t want to (or feel like they need to) hear the details of the sad stories (also known as analysis or situationers). They want to know what can be done.

Right now, I am thinking that even the analysis has to be contested because it may be precisely what keeps anything productive from emerging. Youth, do your job. Show us adults what boxes we have encased ourselves in.