This post is the start of the rough draft of Chapter 8 of my non-fiction WiP, Do Better fka Baby Floors. This chapter will begin the early years of mapping out a path to get there for Phase II, with a potential new adulthood rite of passage.
The overall objective remains that of putting a floor on poverty so that each and every baby born can have a safe childhood.
Outlines for chapter 8 will attempt to match with each section, at the bottom of each post.
(Side note: I’m still trying to figure out how to find reference on the Tsalagi exchange with the Gentleman of South Carolina, colonial era. Cherokee leader was Onacasta (or Ocanasta), maybe of the Middle Towns, around or just before the Ango-Cherokee war sparked by Virginia colonists, or perhaps the Tuscarora War, but the Cherokee sent 4 kids to a white College, and they came back “useless” because they couldn’t run well, or withstand cold or hunger. The leader’s comment was ‘send us some of yours,’ and “we will make them men.” Paraphrasing him except for the make them men, that part I remember quite clearly.
Once again, by way of disclaimer, the overall goal is now to explain why we need both equ. + justice, & why in 4 phases. This chapter is part of showing what Phases I-IV could look like as potential roadmap for a fully inclusive society for all of us. This vision is laid out in the hope that All HumanKind will eventually have each person’s basic needs met, without taking anything from anyone, and without violence, intimidation, nor coercion of any kind.
(Chapter 7, section III. D. was last week ) :
Chapter 8, Introductory section I.
Chapter 8 Introduction (500 wds): Phase II
I.
A(329/250).
In the early years of Phase II, after the hard work of Phase I, and building up our physical infrastructure while starting a new system for continuous rotation of upgraded financial legal learning, this new stage may at first appear a bit esoteric. The prerequisite education needed, in these early stages of Phase II, merely to see why a new type of education is necessary in our country, may be lacking for many, if not most people. the tools for measuring the kind of progress we plan to make during this second phase may also need to be created nearly from scratch, while being shown to be of practical use. The declaration of intention to undergo the Adulthood challenge rite of passage may appear to have little practical use, in these early stages, as might the Challenge itself. Nevertheless, there is a strong practical and symbolic value in proving ones worth to the community, and to oneself. The usefulness in multiple ways of this new rite of passage will have to be proven early on, during these first years of Phase II, by a group of dedicated volunteers, some of whom are hopefully intent upon undergoing the Challenge ourselves. These early years will need to see decisions around prerequisites, declaring sincere intent to take on The Challenge, sorting out the reasons for which each candidate wishes to undergo this Challenge, and then of course, creating some appropriate form of modern ritual to then confer recognition of success upon those candidates who manage to meet all of the requirements. That may be a lot to ask in just 5-7 years, considering that this will be an entirely new concept, the idea of having more than just the turning of 18 years of age, to determine who is an adult in our society. While the consequences of passing or failing The Challenge may not carry great weight yet, the need is clear, and the benefits will also become clear, with time.
B (325/250 wds).
Immediately we come upon the first problem with creating this Challenge: to whom should it apply, and by whom should it be created, evaluated, and recognized. Who will be the volunteers in which communities to start this process of creating a new adulthood rite of passage, and from where will these volunteers draw inspiration, knowledge, and the courage to dare to create something new for our modern world, from an ancient human need, and an ancient human response. The implementation stage, at the middle to later years of Phase II, will need to have answered these questions sufficiently satisfactorily to move forward with the work of setting any prerequisite requirements in motion, in communities where this has been decided to be the case. Communities who choose to allow candidates to move forward without meeting any prerequisite requirements may need to coordinate this with other communities who have decided differently. The declaration of intention and reasons for attempting the Challenge are also, likewise, left up to the individual community to keep or to dispense with, as the needs of any given locality or community of non-geographical type may decide is best in keeping with their needs. But again, this may encounter translation difficulties, so to speak, as candidates who have been recognized as having passed the Challenge in one community seek to enter or have dealings with another community whose criteria may be different enough to be incompatible with their sense of adulthood.A bit like the Tsalagi, and the gentlemen of South Carolina. By the later years of Phase II, the work of education, advocacy, and also lobbying, will have to have begun around changing the way our education system recognizes the ability of any given person to accomplish any given task. The knowledge and skills that each adult citizen of a republic must have in order to make logical informed decisions is really what this new rite of passage is about. Critical thinking with empathy, and the rest are details. We move to those details now.
— (Next Wednesday: Chapter 8, section II. A. )
I’m considering this Rough Draft as the block of clay from which my book will eventually emerge, obviously, and some ideas for phases III and IV are still becoming more fixed in my mind as I write, so the final version will likely look pretty different from this Rough Draft, and will need updating once I get to the very end.
And once again, yeayyy( !!)with regard to audience, I may have at least a couple of comps: Walden Two meets The War on Poverty: A Civilian Perspective (by Dr.s Jean and Edgar Cahn, 1964). I know that lots of people consider Skinner’s writing to be stilted, but I like the tilt of most reviewers, in that the idea is that a community should keep trying policies that members agree upon until they find what works for all of them.
As for genre, I’m still wondering: clearly part of Non-fiction.
Maybe also: System Change, Causes, maybe even Inspirational, but I doubt it.
Action Items:
1.) Consider some ideas you may have on how our society can solve homelessness and child abuse, starting right now,
2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those sources and your thoughts.
Ok, JYP, this is for you!
🙂
Chapter 8 
intro. outlines (sometimes I wing the transition paragraphs…)
**********************
Thoughtful Readers, if you are on Twitter, please share our key #Project Do Better tweets:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
*****************Click these links if you like: Narrative or Historical Nonfiction,
High School Lesson Plans,
Shira
Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Inspiring Critical Thinking and Community via Books, Lessons, and Story 