Tears of Social Justice

I know I haven't posted in a while, but there was something I wanted to share with everyone else. For a while, I've been wondering about social justice and the culture that activists have created for themselves. Usually, at first, somebody gravitates towards social justice because of a moment in their lives, an experience, or an identity they have; for instance, I do LGBT social justice work because I was displaced when I was younger for my sexual orientation. I can only hope that my efforts contribute to the improvement of one person's life so that they do not have to have the same experience that I had growing up.

However, as time goes on, an identity is not enough to sustain social justice activity. Activism has a way of consuming people, as I've stated before. Being a leader stops being about an identity that you have and becomes an identity in itself. Many times, activists will attack each other over small things rather than work together to make society better. Social leadership becomes a type of intellectual masturbation, where people find making waves the only way to make themselves feel important. Instead of taking the effort to where it needs to go, they tear down the efforts of others to make themselves feel big.

And then something small happens.

While the occurrence itself was quite large in many ways, the action in the grand scheme of things seems tiny. A daughter comes out to her father. It happens all the time; I come out to people all the time. Still, you never know how your actions will affect other people. This one particular daughter happened to be the offspring of the Republican mayor of San Diego.




It's odd how such a small thing can make you feel like it's all worth while in the end. You really never know how you're changing things. I think that's the First Principle of Leadership... you have influence over your surroundings. Whether you choose to recognize it or not, you're creating change.

I can only hope my change has done what I set out to do. I feel good today.