Aid Worker Voices

Dear America, a poem

Dear America, a poem

Below is a poem written by Khoreen Johnson, one of my sociological theory students this fall at Elon University. This powerful and heartfelt offering is part of a service project I asked my students to do. This poem is based on material covered in our theory course but more so on the content of Khoreen’s heart.

For context, I ask all of my students to do a ‘service assignment’ where they take something learned and share it with an audience outside of our class. These assignments have yielded some incredible work in the past, but this semester’s theory students embraced the challenge with intelligence, passion, and vision. And yes, I did the assignment myself, taking only as much time as was allowed in class for the first draft. I have added my attempt at the bottom of this post.

Look for more posts with student work touching on a wide array of issues we talked about during the semester.

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Dear America,

When you hear the words “iron cage,”
do you think of what this system calls “justice,”
a cage built for those who need it least,
but let’s not get carried away.

In this iron cage, we make our way,
guided by choices from another time.
Decisions etched by hands long gone,
their shadows lingering,
casting rules we never chose nor questioned.

Eliot Schrefer’s words echo, heavy with truth:
“Tradition is peer pressure from the dead.”
Customs, codes, and laws from distant lives
define our present,
shaping the narrow paths we feel compelled to follow.

We inherit not just the world, but the patterns that bind it—
a lattice of habits and norms too ingrained to question.
We are tethered to these silent forces,
trapped within decisions we did not make,
yet bear as if they were born from our own intent.

The world we stumble through was made by ghosts,
their values threaded through every wall.
Invisible but unyielding, the cage of tradition
limits our steps, narrowing the roads the past insists we walk.

The cage is not just steel or bars;
it’s woven into systems, quiet yet relentless,
cutting sharp as they measure our worth,
as hunger and need are sorted into spreadsheets,
as survival is dictated in quotas, policies, lines.
It takes form in the subtle violence of scarcity,
a design that divides, isolates, and withholds.

For some, this cage becomes a monthly allotment,
food stamps rationed, dignity reduced
to numbers on a balance sheet.
For others, it’s debt piled high,
a weight they never chose, yet must carry.
The cost of existing measured in loans, interest,
the bare essentials withheld or hard-won.

Each day we weigh what to sacrifice—
to do what’s asked or what’s right,
to keep a job or keep our conscience.
The system demands our silence, and rewards our compliance,
our human decency strained by the need to survive.
We rationalize these choices, one by one,
adjusting, justifying, letting go
of small pieces of ourselves, numbing the guilt
that grows quieter with each compromise.

Yet within us, there’s a pulse that won’t quiet,
a voice that questions these silent commands.
To break beyond, to step outside, to challenge
the constructs we were handed like heirlooms.
Crying out to you, America, for change—
for a future where we choose not to follow, but to lead.

Some will push against this iron clasp, with dreams too fierce to be contained.
They speak for change, they rise, they rebel,
against the weight of history,
toward a future the past cannot dictate.

We live in iron cages, built strong and old, shaped by hands we cannot see.
But within these cages lies the choice—
to loosen, to reshape, to build something new.\
The past clings tight, pulls us back, yet always, somewhere, a path emerges—
if we dare to imagine, if we choose to see it through.

With courage and faith,

A Witness

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A letter to humanity

Dear fellow humans,

For me, the election of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States is the logical outcome of a failed global economic and justice system. His election is the product of deep racism and patriarchy and represents authoritarianism only one step away from fascism. Nearly all modern societies (since the rise of state societies after domestication of plants and animals) have defaulted to a form of leadership which has a single person at the apex called e.g., ‘King’, ‘Queen’, ‘Prime Minister’, ‘Supreme Leader’ or variations thereof. Due to social and cultural forces I have described elsewhere (see CTO, 2nd edition), there is an inexorable and increasing pooling of wealth and power in all nations and certainly internationally. Rule by oligarchy is essentially how we could accurately describe most world nation-state powers at this point.

It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and that is what state societies have done regarding leadership: always gravitating toward a single (mostly male) powerful leader model. In a world dominated by neoliberalism, state leaders will only be from and hence serve the interests of the elite class. This must stop. In the words of lesbian warrior poet Audre Lorde, “…the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

I propose moving to a hybrid Quaker model of a leadership counsel always coming to consensus on major decisions based on agreed upon humanistic principles such as laid out (for example) in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A counsel representing the diverse populations of the state would make binding policy decisions based on these principles. This body would be wholly separate from any sources of financial power and members would be prohibited from profiting from their positions.

Cursed by sobriety, I understand in principle the ‘cultural ratchet effect’ making it nearly impossible to undo millennia-long traditions, especially those having to do with power and privilege. That said, see my previous comment about insanity. If free will does indeed exist, we must exercise it now and attempt to save humanity from the insanity of leadership the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

With all the hope I can muster, I challenge humanity all to consider this style of leadership change.

Regards,

Tom Arcaro
End of career humanist and sociologist

 

 

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