You cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it.
Interpretation
Taking responsibility is essential for enacting societal change.
This quote by Grace Lee Boggs emphasizes the importance of personal accountability and belonging when it comes to fostering change within society. It suggests that individuals must recognize their role and responsibility in the community to effectively contribute to its transformation.
In practice
During a community meeting, someone quoted this to inspire others to take action.
We urgently need to bring to our communities the limitless capacity to love, serve, and create for and with each other. We urgently need to bring the neighbor back into our hoods, not only in our inner cities but also in our suburbs, our gated communities, on Main Street and Wall Street, and on Ivy League campuses.
People are aware that they cannot continue in the same old way but are immobilized because they cannot imagine an alternative. We need a vision that recognizes that we are at one of the great turning points in human history when the survival of our planet and the restoration of our humanity require a great sea change in our ecological, economic, political, and spiritual values.
We urgently need a paradigm shift in our concept of the purposes and practices of education. We need to leave behind the concept of education as a passport to more money and higher status in the future and replace it with a concept of education as an ongoing process that enlists the tremendous energies and creativity of schoolchildren in rebuilding and respiriting our communities and our cities now, in the present.
How do we redefine education so that 30-50 percent of inner-city children do not drop out of school, thus ensuring that millions will end up in prison?
Keep recognizing that reality is changing and that your ideas have to change. Donβt get stuck in old ideas.
The struggle we're dealing with these days, which, I think, is part of what the 60s represented, is how do we define our humanity?
What is it you want to change? Your hair, your face, your body? Why? For God is in love with all those things and he might weep when they are gone.
When you try to bring about behavioral change by an effort of will, you actually do violence to yourself, and the chances are very good that you will not succeed. This is so universally true that you can actually make money from it.
My theory is this: Rather than having commentaries from the cheap seats, get involved and see what you can do. What can you do around your own community, within your own family, to try to improve race relations in our country? I think this is a responsibility that we all have as citizens.
Our grandfathers had to run, run, run. My generation's out of breath. We ain't running no more.
And don't be frightened: you can always change your mind. I know: I've had four careers and three husbands.
Change might not be fast and it isn't always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.
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