(Illustration by Diana Ejaita)
Why are Americans worried about democracy to such an unprecedented degree? The answer will not be found in the current election cycle. At the roots of the challenge we face is our failure, yet, to build a democracy that serves all people. Doing so means transforming our governing institutions, laws, regulations, and customs in a more fundamental way than tinkering around the edges with policy and programs.
The way we build a democracy where “We, the People” finally means all people is by embodying a radical love of all people: to acknowledge the inherent dignity and worth of every person, and to act in service of their flourishing.
Realizing a Multiracial Democracy for All
Some may think this kind of thinking is too pie-in-the-sky, or not revolutionary or confrontational enough for the challenges we face. But love is the force that has guided our country’s most prophetic leaders and thinkers: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., bell hooks, Thomas Merton, Grace Lee Boggs, Wilma Mankiller, to name a few, used the power of their voice or actions to summon our souls to the work of love. When bell hooks introduced love as the framework needed to transform ourselves and this country, some skeptics characterized it as too soft a strategy to have merit. But the truth is, the smart ideas, endless rhetoric, and books on the topic are insufficient when we are calloused vessels incapable of manifesting souls with the capacity to love in this manner.
Too often, people use the word love in the abstract. But as theologian Howard Thurman reminded us,
“To speak of love for humanity is meaningless. There is no such thing as humanity. What we call humanity has a name, was born, lives on a street, gets hungry, needs all the particular things that we need.”
In other words, love calls upon us to serve particular
people and their particular needs. It’s not enough for our democracy to say it serves all people; it must be responsive to the particular people who have been excluded, which ultimately benefits us all. Take, for example, the “curb-cut effect”—a term coined by Angela Glover Blackwell—when the addition of sloping curbs to sidewalks was spearheaded by disability activists in Berkeley: Though it was initially to benefit wheelchair users, it ended up benefiting people pushing strollers, luggage, workers pushing heavy carts, and most pedestrians. Their efforts precipitated new city policy, which hundreds of thousands followed across the country, and ultimately culminated in the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, mandating curb cuts, and outlawed discrimination based on ability. When everyday people, institutions, and government act in service, out of love for the particular needs of particular people, the benefits flow outward.
This is hard, transformative work at the very heart of the democracy we have yet to build. We need love “not merely in the personal sense,” as James Baldwin put it, “but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” It is in this daring spirit that we must invoke love as the animating force of a flourishing democracy that serves all.
Over decades of policy advocacy, and after even winning measures like tenant protections and historic funding for under-resourced communities, I’ve realized that no research or framing paper or legislative fight will get us where we need to go. If this nation is to realize the promise of the nation by realizing the promise in us all, then a revolution of our souls must happen at the individual, institutional, and community levels. Only by making ourselves, our practices, and our institutions love in this particular way can we remake and redesign unjust systems.
Doing so requires that we choose love over convenience, power, or the status quo, over comfort, contentment, rules, and social acceptance. To choose love means we must go against our dominant professional training when it reproduces the oppressive systems we operate under today by prioritizing personal and institutional survival, power, and profit over the flourishing of all people. It means we stop causing harm and acknowledge and repair it when we do. Leaders across all sectors must ask themselves: Are we acting in line with our calling to serve all people, especially those who face the burden of structural oppression? Are we doing our generational work to be the next founders of this nation? What risks have we not yet taken to be part of its transformation, and to uplift all people?
As CEO of PolicyLink, this has meant struggling to create a loving and accountable institution. Reflecting on the questions above led us to center the 100 million people in America struggling to make ends meet as the population we would prioritize to improve their life outcomes. Our “love moment” came when staff asked if we would only serve the people of color in this number. It was a question that came from a valid place: Since it seems the nation is unwilling to love Black and Brown people, could we focus on their needs solely? But my answer, and the organization’s answer, was and remains no. The operative word in our equity definition of just and fair inclusion into a society in which all can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential is all. All is who we love.
Accountability is key to this journey. Leaders and the institutions they manage must hold themselves accountable for one standard. They must ask: How is their work making all people, especially, the nearly 100 million people in America struggling to make ends meet, better off? We must center this population because these are the people who our nation has never loved. Organizations should explicitly set their metric for success as materially changed reality for the 100 million, instead of just considering their program activities as success in and of themselves. This is how we hold our organizations accountable to population-level change rather than just doing well-meaning but insufficient work.
For nonprofits, is this metric built into how you measure effectiveness? For government institutions, is the standard of equal protection for all central to your functioning, and do you have the data to back this up? For businesses, are you assessing and actively promoting racial and economic equity in every aspect of your operations and strategy?
If we can cultivate this kind of leadership and accountability rooted in love, it can expand outward into our governing institutions and fortify democracy. These governing institutions that love all would go beyond meeting basic needs—which we have yet to achieve—reformulating how they work altogether to prioritize human flourishing over power and profit.
How might one experience our nation differently if our institutions held themselves accountable, first and foremost, to love for all people? Leaders and institutions would stop perpetuating harm and actively repair those that have already occurred. We would see the transformation of institutions, laws, customs, and social norms to reflect that we learn from our wrongdoings, as well as put an end to cycles of suffering, pain, and unrealized potential. In a nation where love is the unchallenged force driving our democracy, efforts to repair wrongs—like the right to vote expressed in the 15th Amendment—would not be systematically undermined.
How might we experience this manifestation of love in our day-to-day lives? One manifestation of love would be an abundance of neighborhoods where people of all backgrounds, incomes, and ages can thrive, and rest assured that they can stay and build in their communities. Police chiefs would stop over-policing. States could stop imposing requirements that make it more difficult for people to vote. Our government would stop implementing tax policies that disproportionately burden lower-income families. Financial institutions could stop discriminatory access to housing loans. Health care systems and insurance companies would stop allowing people to go into significant medical debt simply for receiving needed health services. Government would stop the disinvestment that is contributing to economic decline, decaying infrastructure, and population loss in rural communities across the nation.
Choosing to perpetuate ongoing harms is more costly—on municipalities, communities, and our collective flourishing—than stopping it. A democracy animated by love means we can experience and bear witness to less harm. We can ensure no generation’s potential is confined by the harms upon those that preceded them. We can treat the ability to acknowledge and redress harms as both a prerequisite and propellant for a thriving democracy.
However, to get there, government leaders—at all jurisdictional levels—must act in service to tenants and low-income homeowners first, choosing investments that prioritize community well-being over real estate practices that maintain the status quo. This would mean more rent stabilization campaigns nationwide, and philanthropy funding the organizations running them. This would mean housing provided for all our neighbors, funded by governments and philanthropy—including those experiencing homelessness. This would mean more community centers and gardens, instead of luxury developments and vacant office buildings.
With love at the center of governing, our institutions would support communities to lead, supporting the flourishing of community housing models and initiatives to restore Indigenous lands through traditional cultural and ecological knowledge. It would mean city planning, tax codes, and incentives that support libraries, community centers, and grocery stores in every neighborhood. These results would be the natural outcome of governing institutions that honor the dignity and worth of every person.
Or take the example of our nation’s responses to environmental challenges and the climate crisis. If our governing institutions were rooted in transformative love, every community, no matter its tax base, would have clean and safe water.
Coastal communities facing the brunt of sea level rise would have abundant federal, state, and local resources to build resilient infrastructure to respond to fires and floods to ensure the safety of all residents. We would have a disaster response model across all levels of government that prioritizes the well-being of all and distributes response regardless of race, class, or tax base when a flood, hurricane, or fire hits. Corporate leaders driving the climate crisis would be held accountable to communities where they operate, facilitated by a government of, by, and for the people. Again, governing institutions would honor the voice, wisdom, and leadership of the communities most impacted by historical injustice, seeding initiatives like resilient solar and wind energy infrastructure. This is how we seed love for generations to come, and in turn build and fortify a democracy that serves all.
It’s within our power to make these futures a reality and to build a country where “We, the People” truly includes all people—but only if we do the work of transformative love. It is our generational work to perfect this democracy and realize this ideal. The journey begins with critical self-reflection: Where am I not loving the people enough? Where can I be part of the disruption necessary to transform this country as we know it? How can I be receptive to accountability? How can I transform the institution I’m part of to cultivate this possibility?
Through this work of transformative love, we can build a nation that serves all for the first time. As that practice of love expands outward, we will begin to see the fruits of such a journey in a flourishing democracy that works for all.
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Read more stories by Michael McAfee.