shananaomi:In my much angrier days I read a lot of Larry Kramer, and then had the chance to work wit
shananaomi:In my much angrier days I read a lot of Larry Kramer, and then had the chance to work with him as an editor and an activist. Of all the things he taught me about how to use my anger to make good in the world the one I remember best is quiet and small, or as quiet and small as a loud man like Larry Kramer ever gets. It’s from the speech he made at New York’s gay community center in March 1987, the speech that helped launch ACT UP, the movement that changed not only AIDS awareness but health care and the concept of patients’ rights worldwide.He said:“I want to talk to you about power. We are all in awe of power, of those who have it, and we always bemoan the fact that we don’t have it. Power is little pieces of paper on the floor. No one picks them up. Ten people walk by and no one picks up the piece of paper on the floor. The eleventh person walks by and is tired of looking at it, and so he bends down and picks it up. The next day he does the same thing. And soon he’s in charge of picking up the paper. And he’s got a lot of pieces of paper that he’s picked up. Now – think of those pieces of paper as standing for responsibility. This man or woman who is picking up the pieces of paper is, by being responsible, acquiring more and more power. He doesn’t necessarily want it, but he’s tired of seeing the floor littered. All power is the willingness to accept responsibility.”This idea is at the heart as I know it of community organizing, of leadership, of being a person who wants to leave the world a little better than you found it. It’s a quiet and small gesture to make, especially for a man on the cusp of having an immense amount of power.This is the caption from the above photo, via Getty: US Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama picks up a water bottle cap he dropped after speaking during a rally at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, October 28, 2008. Power is the willingness to accept responsibility. Leadership is the willingness to accept that power, and the responsibility that comes with it. Leadership is picking up little pieces of paper off the floor while the world watches.I wrote that on October 28, 2008, the day the above photo was taken. I don’t know if Obama’s farewell speech tonight was what I needed or wanted to hear, but it was in so many ways exactly the same point he’s been making all along. It’s our fight to take up, our power to use. -- source link
#obamafarewell#im trying