The Tarheel Manifesto

I believe that asking those you want to help, “how?” is the first step to becoming a better ally. I ask that question all the time. How can I better support you during this time? How can I make myself safer for you? How do I better articulate this issue that I don’t directly relate to but want to bring others attention to?

“How” might be the most important question of human history. We are constantly trying to answer the questions: How to live well? How to find love? How to make money? How to bring peace? How to be happy? What we often fail to realize is that the answers are right in front of us. In the words of Pastor Paul Daughtery, in his sermon, “The Master Key” (the sermon that inspired my service project) we are born with possibilities. And it is through our possibilities, capabilities, and the limitations associated with our capabilities that we are constantly understanding ourselves. If you are mathematically gifted, then the possibility of you being a successful engineer may be how you define yourself. Or maybe you’re artistically and rhetorically gifted, then your understanding of yourself may be through those possibilities. What my service project aims to do is take the understanding of our life’s purpose a little deeper by connecting it to our experiences, our growing knowledge of the world, and our awareness of how we interact with the power structure- and then allowing the culmination of these things to show us HOW we can be of service to the world.

I’m taking a philosophy class right now, and one of the philosophies we’ve learned about recently is around this thing called “facticity.” Facticity is an idea (coined by Heidegger) that the world is a “fact” that we don’t get to control, but are rather thrown into. We are thrown into our circumstances- whether its racial, physical, financial, emotional, locational or environmental and those are all just facts of life. None of us choose to be born into our race, but the race we are born into becomes the lens we see the world through. None of us chose to be born into a country that idolizes “perfect” bodies, whiteness, heteronormativity, war, and constant productivity, but that’s the lens we all see the world through, until we find a way out of that mindset. I believe that the way out of that mindset is through education in your field of interest/possibilities, in CONJUNCTION with social, historical, and emotional education.

Now, when you begin to become more socially B, historically, and emotionally educated, you will most likely experience conflict between this new information and your original perspectives- and that’s because much of our reality is shaped by perspectives that are rooted in the power structures. It is these structures which narrate the history that we come to accept as true. It is these structures that define poverty as laziness, or at best, unfortunate, without addressing the political strategy of limiting upward mobility and creating generational cycles of debt and poverty. It is these structures that define undocumented immigrants as criminals and “pilgrims” as heroes. It is these structures that convince us that issues can be fixed with charity work and missions trips, and blind us to the fact that the food shelter, the women’s shelter, the prison system, extreme poverty overseas, and even climate change are all byproducts of the same oppressive entities.

It is also these structures that have provided us, as Carolina students, with such easy access to this sort of knowledge and awareness while depriving it from others. We can have these conversations, and therefore, I believe it is our duty to do so. Within my Christian faith, I believe the greatest commandment- to love your neighbor as yourself and love others as God has loved you- is too often overlooked. If it were followed (both within and outside the Church), more people would truly be living like Jesus and amplifying the voices of marginalized communities, calling out the hypocrisy of those in power, and sacrificing much on behalf of those who have little to sacrifice. You become like Jesus by loving others enough to be their advocate/ally.

Through my spiritual gifts study, revolutionary mental health series, women’s history and education, and “how to” talks, my hope is that more people will leave this campus feeling empowered to make a difference, with some direction on how to do so. My knowledge is still limited in many areas, which is why I’m open to learning everyday, but I seek to teach because I know that none of my knowledge is sufficient standing on it own. Liberation requires amplification, teamwork and unity. And true unity can only be accomplished with each individual realizing and releasing their gifts and then working together for the common good of all. We have the keys to go from our present state of limitations to our future state of possibilities.