A famous quote I love to live by is, “Be the change you want to see.” Activism will get us to the change we all crave.
“Be” is a verb that means to exist, occur, or take place. So if something is taking place, that means that there is action behind it. Hold onto this thought as I continue.
In this age of civil rights and social justice, everyone seems to be fighting for some sort of cause or change. But not everyone’s fight is the same. There are some who will speak out on issues and publicly support or recommend that changes should be made. This is what you call an advocate. Advocates will make public statements showing their support for a certain idea or cause. But their work stops there. Beyond attractive words and motivational speeches, nothing happens after that. Can real change take place if no work is actually done to ignite the change?
There’s another type of person who wants to see change occur and will take action to ensure that progress is made towards a solution. This is what we call an activist. Activists campaign to bring about political or social change.
A campaign is an organized course of action to achieve a goal. Activists work to ensure that the work continues after raising awareness on an issue.
Based on the current state of our community, it’s evident to see that we have a lot of advocacy and not enough activism.
Many public figures speak out about issues that need to be rectified in the Black community but for whatever reason, either affiliations or contracts, they do not take action to resolve the issues. How can our nation be reborn if all we do is advocacy? What real change will we see if there is no organized course of action to achieve a goal?
We know that as a nation, we want to thrive with our own communities, commodities, and wealth amongst ourselves. We want our children to be able to attend our schools where our own curriculum is taught by our educators. We want those who are sick to be able to seek medical attention, care, and treatment from our own health professionals who are dedicated to treating illnesses and diseases holistically. We want our economy to be backed by our own merchants who create Clean N’ Lawful products that we can trust. We want our food to be grown locally and cultivated on our own lands. Recognizing these things falls into line with advocacy. Taking organized courses of action to achieve these goals requires activism. And that action must come from us, the ones who want to see it.
Be the change you want to see. And don’t let inactivity keep us from achieving goals that we can attain.
If you want to take real action to see the desired outcome, visit www.YAHwillgather.us to get involved and get mobilized.
Dejyah Yisrael contributed this article.
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