Stacey Abrams: Leading from the Outside

On Saturday, I attended a talk organized as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival. The talk was with Stacey Abrams, whose nomination and work for the post of governor in Georgia, as she rightly said, was stolen from her through gerrymandering, voter suppression and suchlike. I found about the event through a whimsical google search for things to do in Chicago and I am so glad I did. It was a mess of a day, with a freak winterstorm breaking the streak of good weather we had. That is not surprising to be honest; it's one of those things I have to come to expect from the midwest, don't pack away your snow gear until it's June.  The auditorium filled up and the demographic was largely older. What was unexpected was that Stacey's introduction would be done by Lori Lightfoot, mayor-elect. 

Which is just as well, because Mary Mitchell forgot to even introduce herself or use any words that would imply it was the beginning of a talk. I think Stacey Abrams was intelligent, razor sharp, oh-so-snarky and the talk was a treat. Where the talk fell short was in Mary Mitchell's hosting but oh well. Part of the ticket was getting a copy of her book 'Leading from the Outside', which I promptly used the time there to start (I was alone so I had all the time). I leave you with some of the lines from her talk, which stuck with me (I went armed with a notebook and pen, I knew something would stick and I would want to take it back with me).  

"We all need to be part of something bigger than ourselves."

- this brings me to the question that I think I am living these days, what does this mean for agnostics in the world.

On being asked about the democrats being the party of the others, the party that had left faith behind, she said that "it wasn't the dems that had abandoned faith, it was that the reps had weaponized faith."

Another thing she talked about that when you are on the outside, you only dream of being as much as the highest current version of you on the inside is. She spoke about efficiency not counting if the work is not authentic, about the false hijacking of the identity politics narrative. She spoke about this being one of the first times in her and our lives, where minorities did not have to look for proxies to lead, where they could see themselves in the candidates. Of course, as she said, not everybody who was in your group, was of your group. 

She talked about how voter suppression is often attributed to user failure whereas it is the result of system failure and not of the individual voters.

When I left, it the same rain-snow kept blowing through and I was pretty soaked by the time I got into my uber but it was completely worth it. It also made for a pretty picture, even though it gave me a rather annoying hair frizz hairstyle. Also in some ways, the inspiration and hope I felt from the talk lent me a confidence that was ill-suited to the gathering I went to, which I then proceeded to (so I am told) dominate. Sometimes I forget to stem the courage and boldness that has become so normal for me and which the painfully shy me a decade ago, could not have believed was possible for me. It does worry me a little, how much of me right now is a reaction to that and how much of me is just me. Of course a lot of life is a reaction to something, something from childhoods and places of happiness and fear. But if you understand what I mean, you will know what that question is for me and why it hurts.