A Myth: Social Change without Personal Change

"Perhaps you are a better person than I am. I hope you are. But, if you’re like me, take this moment to remind yourself: we are parts of the problems in this world. We acknowledge that we are part of a broken society, yet we are participants in this brokenness, and we are fools if, even in our activism to change it, we separate ourselves from it."

Last weekend, I went to the Minnesota State Green Party Annual Meeting, yet I drove 125 miles round trip, on my own, in my gas-guzzler of a car, in order to get there. I call myself anti-corporate, but as I write this, every piece of clothing that I’m wearing was bought at Target. I seek ideals like economic and racial justice, but as I work towards those goals, I'm attending one of the whitest, most expensive colleges in the richest country in the world.

Perhaps you are a better person than I am. I hope you are. But, if you’re like me, take this moment to remind yourself: we are parts of the problems in this world. We acknowledge that we are part of a broken society, yet we are participants in this brokenness, and we are fools if, even in our activism to change it, we separate ourselves from it. If we criticize American wastefulness, yet we don’t finish the food on our plate, we are ignorant. If we say that we support LGBT rights, yet we (plan to) accept the rights that are granted to us in our own traditional marriages, we are hypocrites. We are founded in the injustices, inequalities, and general wrongness that we see in society today.

I’m not necessarily asking that people completely reform their lives. To live a sinless life is an expectation that is undoubtedly too high to ask of anyone. However, I do think that it is imperative to, at the very least, acknowledge our own personal shortcomings. Recognize that we are “getting a bargain” at a department store at the expense of the 40-year-old cashier who makes a minimum wage half as high as it ought to be. Realize that, while we criticize the “1%,” we are, in a universal sense, just that. If we are to truly be “Leaders for Social Change,” we must be perceptive to these things, for, in a very real way, we are limited in the meaningful changes we can make in the world by the meaningful changes we are willing to make within ourselves.