The day I’m writing this is May 31. After weeks of stay-at-home orders, people in the U.S. are slowly emerging from our homes — stretching our limbs to the sun as a bear after hibernation, squinting against the glare of plexiglass barriers at the market, acclimating to slightly muffled speech and fogged-over eyeglasses, wondering if anyone can tell if we’re smiling politely behind our masks.
While many people are expressing relief about “things getting back to normal,” I have a confession: relief is not what I feel, because normal is not what I want.
Author Sonya Renee Taylor says it this way: “We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-[coronavirus] existence was never normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment — one that fits all of humanity and nature.”
How apt that metaphor: a new garment. What might that new design look like? How might it be brought to market? What might our profit and loss statements look like if we were to replace greed with generosity? Inequity with justice? Exhaustion with rest? Disconnection with kinship? Confusion with civil discourse? Rage and hate with empathy and love?
It’s Time to Rethink Everything
I should back up. I wonder how many people even agree with Taylor’s assessment — that the “normal” we’ve been operating under … isn’t.
The truth is, it’s tough to recognize how ill-fitting a garment is until we’re wearing it ourselves — until it’s tight across our mid-section or scratchy under the left arm. In other words, if “normal” works just fine for us — if we can move freely, access what we need and have what we want — why change at all?
I’m the CEO of a nonprofit organization serving some of the most vulnerable folks around the U.S. and the world, so my answer to that question is simple and frank: we have to change because what “works just fine” for some people buries others, quite literally.
Most of us reading this publication have sufficient financial resources to meet our basic needs. We have access to health care and jobs with paid-time-off benefits. We have freedom of movement and expression. As a white male, I’m privileged in both inconsequential and significant ways. There’s no question that my normal is pretty comfortable. Cushy, even.
But my comfort isn’t the point. The discomfort of others is the point — or, rather, the disenfranchisement of others. The marginalization of others. The othering of others.
What Isn’t Normal
I can think of a thousand examples of “normals” that ought not be. Most have been generations in the making, but I’ll choose one that’s especially close to my organization this summer.
When I first heard this statistic, it absolutely floored me: more than 1.5 million children in the U.S. are homeless. That’s the highest rate of youth homelessness ever in our country. And with more economic hard times to come, it will get worse. I know it’s uncomfortable to think about, but I want to challenge us all to lean into that number for a moment. Because it’s not just a statistic. It’s the reality — the “normal” — for millions of kids.
It’s “normal” for kids in my town and yours. These kids don’t know where they’ll get to sleep tonight, when they’ll get a full meal or any food at all, when they’ll be able to take a bath and put on clean clothes.
At Soles4Souls, we’re not about solving homelessness. We’re about providing shoes for kids who need them most, including these kids.Worn out or ill-fitting shoes can cause harm to kids’ feet. Without something as basic as a good pair of shoes, children can’t fully participate in gym class or sports. But perhaps the greatest damage is the embarrassment and humiliation they feel among their peers.
Under normal circumstances — there’s that word again — parents living in extreme poverty struggle to meet their family’s basic needs. But because many of them work in industries particularly hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, their hours and income have been dramatically reduced. At this point, a new pair of good shoes likely feels completely out of reach.
So, we’re going to get these kids some shoes. We’re changing and expanding our circle of generosity so that we can relieve a burden for struggling parents.
Threading the Needle
The world feels particularly fragile right now. It’ll likely get worse before it gets better. But it will get better, assuming enough of us decide we will not go back to “normal.” This year may go down as one of the most calamitous in a century. But I have to believe we will get back up — assuming we’re willing to reach out our hands to one another.
But here’s the thing: we can’t wait for someone else to reach out. We can’t wait for others to start sewing this new garment. We have to thread our own needles and create a new normal full of hope and dignity and equity and justice for all.
I can’t tell you exactly what that looks like for you, your brand or your industry. But our world of fashion and business knows how to have tough conversations, how to do the hard work and how to make different decisions. There’s an old saying that the best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago, but the second best time is right now. Tick tock.
Buddy Teaster
Soles4Souls
soles4soles.com
