Imagine with me, for a moment, with that brilliant mind of yours!
On the same altar we sacrifice entitlement as a ghastly, unbecoming, and unrighteous positionality, are concepts of collectivism, community, and connection bound together without us even realizing.
We crucify entitlement not knowing we've also sentenced communal support to die.
When a person is hurt, there are voices quick to tell them that no one in this world owes them anything. When a person is in need of care and support from others, there are perspectives quick to point out that no one is going to give them anything, so they have to go and get it for themselves. It's the position that just because you've been wronged, hurt, or made vulnerable doesn't mean that you should expect anyone to help you or treat you with empathy; that your problems are yours alone, and if you wallow in them too long, you've succumbed to the vice of self-pity and surely no one will want to help you now.
And does this individualistic way of thinking turn out bad for everyone? No, certainly not. Some are faced with these messages and make it their personal mission to “get it out the mud,” “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps,” and all the other colloquialisms we use in this country to glamorize struggle and promote hyperindividualism. What these messages – and the phrases within them – often lack is context, primarily, but also the radical idea that there's another way to interact with the people in our lives.
What if we did owe something to each other? Friend and foe, colleague and client, elder and younger, what if there was a commitment, a baseline that we agreed to in service to each other? What if we owed each other something? I urge you, dear reader, to imagine a world in which you and your neighbor owe each other something that makes your experience in this life better.
What if we owed each other a deep, foundational respect for the other's humanity and dignity? What if we owed each other the most simplistic version of trust and honesty? Nothing incredibly intimate, but something meaningful nevertheless.
I've seen it, you know. Everybody raves about how safe Japan is. Of course it has its moments like any other country, but the rumors really are true. I have never felt safer on any inch of this planet as a Black woman than I have on the streets of Japan. But I'm not Japanese. I'm a Southern Black American woman with an experience of community far different from that which I witnessed overseas.
The moment I saw community trust for the first time in Japan, I believe it was our first day of class. There was a kindergarten school on our route to class and on the first morning, we saw a sight that was rather distressing for the Westerners in the group.
Children, toddlers really, no older than 3 or 4 were parading down a long street alone to their kindergarten. The Americans in particular chatted furiously asking where on earth were these children's parents and why in the world were they just walking unsupervised. We were projecting the lack of communal safety and communal responsibility in our home country onto this cultural context that couldn't be any different from the ones we were born in.
Perhaps it was jealousy I felt, then. To be a Japanese toddler with enough trust in the adults around you to confidently go to school without an ounce of concern for your safety. I'm not a parent, but I'm sure if I were, I'd be envious of the security Japanese parents have in sending their toddlers off every day knowing that their world is one where independence is encouraged and children are protected.
I will reiterate, this is not trying to say Japan is better than other countries or that America is the worst place on the planet to be a child. This is not to say that Japan has perfected the essence of community and that the rest of us have no hope. I don’t believe that. On the contrary, I’m probably more optimistic than most about the potential we have on this side of the pond to really experience a stronger sense of community, care, mutual obligation, and love and respect for our neighbor.
What I am saying is that places where people in fact do owe each other something tend to yield stronger communities and more positive experiences for the most vulnerable amongst them. In turn, I suppose I'm arguing that the lower we set expectations for each other, the less we can gain from and contribute to the communities we live in. We remain bare, with nothing but our own strength and resources to fend for ourselves without the generous hand of a neighbor. The hand of a neighbor that we don't have to know in order to trust. What if we owed each other something? What would change?
Thalia's just a girl who wants strong community for us all!
