Now that we have come to the truth, let’s move on to how to start again.
Remembering that underneath hunger is untreated trauma extending back multiple generations; acknowledging that the systems we have in place help people a little yet keep many people in poverty, and in many cases cause harm; admitting that underneath the trauma and death-dealing superstructure is a culture of domination rooted in white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy, part III presents principles and ideas that can reorient our society toward mutuality and equanimity for a more nourishing world.
To evolve toward a world where everyone is nourished requires work in three interdependent domains. First, we need to engage in work that is deeply personal and interpersonal with friends and family. Second, we ought to address political challenges in the realm of public policy and programming. Third, we can allow the spiritual force of love within us to heal our relationships with ourselves, other people, and the natural world. We cannot do the personal work of undoing white supremacy and rape culture that persists in our families and our own bodies without also seeking to shift the systems of our society through policy change. They rely on each other. So even if you are not involved in policy decision-making, you can work on yourself and your family, and show up in support of those who do the policy work. You can imagine, talk about, and share ideas for the kind of world you would want to live in. Maybe it is rooted in care and solidarity. Similarly, if you do policymaking and advocacy, you will not be effective unless you, too, do personal and interpersonal work. This will support you in creating systems and policies that encourage people to transform our society. And we all need spiritual depth rooted in love to survive the hardships ahead. We need each other to join in solidarity to help us survive as a species, support the earth’s ecosystems that produce and regenerate food, and end the inequality that drives hunger. Solidarity includes a feeling of mutual care and a willingness to support each other with deep respect in a spirit of collaboration, affection, and interdependence. It is a recognition that our own lives are interwoven with those of others, including those of future generations.
There are four chapters in part III. Chapter 9 focuses on personal and interpersonal work; it is an invitation to stay awake, undo white supremacy culture, and pull the plug on patriarchy and rape culture. Chapter 10 demonstrates how we can also undo the harms of racism and discrimination by creating and supporting policies that implement repair for generations of harm to Indigenous and Black people who have suffered indignity, theft, exploitation, murder, and torture. I propose an abolitionist approach to all state-supported systems along with new federal policy solutions based on equanimity, community care, and solidarity. These universal policies demand an evolution of the human spirit, and willingness to evolve beyond capitalism to embrace a solidarity economy rooted in human rights and the rights of nature, which is explained in chapter 11. Chapter 12 circles back around to the gaping hole at the center. I ask us to look again at the data showing how mothers describing very low food security talked about feeling as if, during their own childhoods, they were not loved. To look into the suffering within that gaping hole takes spiritual courage. I invite us to embrace an ethic of love as well as a deep and abiding accountability to the many generations ahead. To do so demands we work on ourselves to ensure we become ancestors who express loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Our very survival depends on it.