Barbara Beckwith

We are sexist, racist, classist and homophobic people. How could it be any other way? We were raised, and live in a violently hierarchical society. We all walk around with internalized oppressions speaking seductively in our ears. It is time for us to start from a new place, no longer can we go around saying “I am not racist, sexist homophobic etc. Because I know those things are bad.” If we expect to be effective and responsible conduits of social change we must be able to say to ourselves, “racism, sexism, classism and all isms are bad and I contain those patterns of thought. And because of this self knowledge I am ready to, with compassion, go to work on these things as I see them manifest in the world and in myself.”

Andrea Godshalk – www.azumera.com