Inclusion, Inc.

CHAPTER 16Hold the Door

Another world is not only possible. She is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

—Arundhati Roy

Like most people living in Seattle at the time, I took a few photos during the George Floyd protests. Over a year later, I find myself looking at them and thinking about what that summer stood for. I've noticed something that didn't quite catch me then. With the right filter applied, these photos could have been my parents and their friends at protests in the sixties and seventies. As a child of activist boomers, I was brought up with the stories of how that generation championed the rights of those who were considered “outsiders” in race, gender, custom, and belief. Growing up with these stories, decades ago, was inspiring.

Now, though, looking at protest photos from 2020, I'm reminded of a phrase I learned when I was working in international development: constructive impatience.

Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen coined this term decades ago, in his book, Development as Freedom. He continues to praise the “virtue of impatience” in discussing global inequality today: “I think impatience is the most important virtue that we have to cultivate. I think [we have] suffered a lot from being super-patient with inequality and injustice on one side and absurdity on the other.”

This quote from a speech Sen gave in 2019 loops in my head as I look at photos and headlines from 2020's summer of unrest. The protest signs could have been taken straight ...