Courage - What Will You Choose?
Guest Reflection - January 15, 2022
Cammy Watkins
“Umuntu Ngamuntu Ngabantu” It means I am because you are. Martin Luther King Jr. is quoted for many things, and I feel a responsibility to share his words on courage in these remarks today. He said:
“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles; Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances. Courage breeds creativity: Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it. Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”
As we are on the precipice of another Martin Luther King Jr Day. We have upon us another opportunity to review the life of this man that today is honored and revered by many around the world. We again have the opportunity to answer the call that he and so many others laid before us during the civil rights movement in this country. The call to fight for something AND against something. The call to envision and dream of a world that had not yet been realized or experienced by ALL people. The call to courage for the sake of our humanity. In today’s remarks I want to speak about that particular call to our humanity.
Many people know me from the fact that I took a leap of faith and ran for office last year. That leap of faith was a decision that I did not make lightly. It was the culmination of decades of work in service of others with the purpose of making a difference in this world. I realized when I was very young, that I am on this planet for a reason. That I have a purpose and that purpose is to make a difference. I don’t know how exactly I am supposed to make that difference, but I know that I have to actively be engaged in my community. The more time I spend meeting and talking and learning and listening to others the more I feel a connection to things greater than myself. The more I feel a connection to my humanity.
I truly believe, we have a responsibility to our humanity. We have a responsibility to step into our courage when it comes to humanity and in doing so, we are doing what is right. And sometimes doing what is right for humanity is seen as going against our own self-interest. When we push aside our fear, we are tapping into our greatest strength because courage, as Roy Bennett says, “is feeling fear not getting rid of fear, but knowing something is more important than fear and taking action in the face of fear.” Too often, we abandon what we know is the responsibility to others in society; to our greater humanity, because we are afraid of how these choices will impact ourselves. However, the truth is, it is when we turn our back on others that we lose ourselves and in turn our connection to humanity.
In the past few years, we found ourselves in a battle of who is right and who is wrong, who is good and who is evil. But we forget that there are few concrete absolutes in this world. There is very little Black and White when it comes to humanity. There is gray in everything because in our humanity we are more than just one thing. We are complex beings. We are a multitude. There is a duality of all of our circumstances and until we have the courage to fight for ourselves, whether we love each other or not, to fight for the humanity of our people, our communities, our world, we will not be whole. We have to have the courage to fight against the status quo in defense of humanity and when we do not do so, we are betraying ourselves “Umuntu, ngamuntu, ngabantu” I am because you are.
Desmond Tutu says “Ubuntu is the essence of human being. It speaks to the fact that my humanity is caught up and is inextricably bound up in yours and I am human because I belong.” We all belong to each other and for each other we belong and until we start to work as a community and a society to creatively build a world in which there are no hierarchies, there is no sexism, there's no heterosexism, there is no racism-- We will never truly experience the beauty and the glory that is Ubuntu, to be one because we are of each other.
So that is my challenge to each of us to fight for the humanity and the pieces that we know are right for each other. We have to be willing to take the risk of getting it wrong. As Ken Robinson said, “If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.” And the world needs us to come up with something original. The world is calling for us to be greater than we have been before. We need us to be creative and brave and authentic and human in order to create the world that we all can thrive within.
There is this fear, this fear that stops us from trying something different from doing something new from being something different yet extraordinary.
Osho says “To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” So let us dance in the light of creativity and difference in celebration of humanity. Let us dance in the joy of courage. Let us dance in the face of fear because as the Zimbabwe born and Canadian based philosopher and author Matshona Dhliwayo says “It takes greater faith to dance in the dark, than to rest in light.”
Let’s sit with that for a minute because those words have power. It takes greater FAITH to dance in the dark, than to rest in the light. The words chosen by Mr. Dhliwayo are so intentional. FAITH. What is the faith he speaks of in this moment? Is it the belief in a spiritual other or is it a belief in oneself or is it all of the above? The FAITH to dance in the dark than to rest in the light. How often do we rest in the light? Comforted by the comfort of the sun. The peace that comes from being able to clearly see what is ahead and what came before. How much FAITH does it take to rest in the light? Not much. Because there is little that can hide in the light. When issues have been brought to light, we feel the job is done. We feel the work is complete. I recently have been watching the miniseries about the murder of Emmet Till. This particular episode was called Let them see.
This episode that aired this week chronicled the moments after Emmet’s body was found violently beaten and carelessly tossed into the Tallahatchie River. In that moment when Mamie Till Mobley saw her son. The beautiful Black boy with Hazel Green eyes and the perfect smile (his mother was so proud of his teeth she said they were perfect). Those teeth all missing from his mouth now. Those beautiful eyes swollen to the point you could not see them. Mamie looked upon the body of her son and decided in that moment he would have an open casket funeral, because she wanted to let them see. She needed to let them see. In a time when too many Black mothers and fathers and children and grandparents we are brushing under the rug the tragedies of the horrors of racism and the multitude of injustices faced by our people. She was courageous enough to say. No. I will not hide this atrocity. I will let them see. And it was in THAT light she did not rest. She fought back. And in many ways, she was dancing in the dark because this had never been done before and she took such risks to fight back to travel to face the murderers of her child. To put her life on the line in order to find justice for the life that was cut too short. She had the FAITH to dance in the dark. She had the courage, the inner resolution to go forward despite the obstacles. She faced the fear knowing something more important than fear needed to take action. Mamie Till Mobly is the epitome of that quote for me and I am grateful for all the women like her who in times of darkness chose to dance so that if even for a moment people like me can rest in the light. We still have much dancing to do. We still have much more darkness to turn to light. But if we have the courage to fight for humanity, we will have the strength to carry on.
We are at a crossroads. We have before us both Panic and a Pandemic. We need to decide will we be silent or will we fight. And fight isn’t always violence. We can fight with our love, we can fight with our compassion, we can fight with our words.
We have a choice. Being a human being is given, but keeping our humanity is a choice. So what will you choose?
- Cammy Watkins, Executive Director of Operations + Programs, Inclusive Communities
