Who Do We Choose to Be?: Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity

by Margaret J. Wheatley

There is an unavoidable consequence when people from the margins organize.9 The burden of change and the restoration of national values get placed on them. If you want equal rights, it’s your job to fight for them. If you demand equal pay, convince us. If you want to be included at the table, prove yourself. The very values that defined who we wanted to be as a nation are no longer defended by the nation. Instead, those who are marginalized must speak loud enough to get our attention. It’s no wonder that they end up screaming. And when they finally do get our attention, more often than not we blame them for raising the issue. Either we’re doing fine, or it’s their fault that we failed. Anger intensifies on both sides, polarization increases, and any ideal of national identity is trampled beyond recognition. Such civil divisions are predictable in a declining civilization. Instead of uniting in common cause to protect the nation from real threats, we take ourselves down by ever more hateful exchanges.