The Toolbox

Introduction

Ieshia Evans protesting the murder of Alton Sterling on July 9, 2016, in Baton Rouge, LA.

Photo by Jonathan Bachman

“Let’s check to see if the ground is okay.”

Kids tumble, knees scrape. As a toddler, when I’d trip and fall, my mother would scoop me up. She’d give me a kiss and a hug. Then she would turn our shared attention to the spot where I fell. My mother would kneel, place her hand upon the earth, and ask us to show compassion to a scrap of land: “Let’s check to see if the ground is okay.”

In part, this was a young parent’s practical trick to distract a crying child from passing pain. But it was more.

My mother’s strategy manifested a deeper belief: kindness is infinite. We have enough kindness for a world that has held us up, even enough for a world that has hurt us.

That kindness powers the greatest of human impulses: to serve, to build, to love, to witness.

It drives us to seek a better world—to multiply justice and joy.

But change is hard. The world does not easily yield to our visions of perfection.

How do we make change?

There are no easy answers.

Instead, there are tools.

The work of social good is spread throughout society. Its burden falls upon the shoulders of people with and without power. Its challenges fall to those with formal training and to those who simply dream of something better.

It starts within the radius of community. One neighbor ...