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Family values and societal results

Family values and societal results
Jennifer A. Smith/Getty Images
Debilyn Molineaux
By Debilyn MolineauxJan 25, 2023
Debilyn Molineaux

Debilyn Molineaux is the catalyst of JEDIfutures.org , a global initiative that helps people imagine and create just, equitable, dignified, and inclusive futures. She is best known for her pioneering work in civic innovation, having co-founded Bridge Alliance, Living Room Conversations, and National Week of Conversation. She formerly acted as co-publisher for The Fulcrum. Across these efforts, Debilyn has brought together unlikely allies to co-create solutions for democracy, governance, and social transformation.

Her work lives at the intersection of strategy, systems change, and spirit. A long-time practitioner of personal and collective growth, she brings a deep commitment to the inner dimensions of change that are often overlooked but essential to transformation. Debilyn speaks of the “interstitial spaces” — the connective tissue between people, institutions, and movements — where new possibilities take root.

She also hosts the podcast Terrified Nation, which helps audiences move from fear and despair into courage and action. Her voice is sought by impact investors, changemakers, and visionary leaders who want to align resources, imagination, and human growth toward a thriving future for all.

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Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

I attended a personal growth training program many years ago, and one maxim that stuck with me was this: “If you want to know what you are committed to, look at your results. Your results show what you are committed to.”

In the context of personal growth, this was intended to propel people into taking responsibility for their own lives and stop making excuses for why they hadn’t succeeded. I still use this maxim to look at my own life, especially when I’m unhappy or discontented about something. I have discovered that I’m more committed to eating what I want than to eating healthy, for instance. This allows me to clearly see my choices for what they are. I can satisfy that immediate desire for something sweet or I can choose carrots for my long-term health. I choose sweets most often.

I see this playing out in society. We have grown accustomed to instantaneous satisfaction via Amazon deliveries, Facebook likes, on-demand entertainment and the like. Algorithms deliver what we want, when we want it. Sometimes, before we even know we want it. And all of this is great for convenience and commerce. It is less optimal for human interaction, where our friends and family don’t deliver that dopamine hit on demand. Society doesn’t exist for our convenience. When humans are involved, it’s complicated. Collectively as “civil society,” what are we committed to?

Collectively, we seem to be committed to some unhealthy behaviors. For instance:

  • We “purity test” our relationships, where everyone is either 100% with us, or against us.
  • We want to be admired and respected by people we don’t know on social media.
  • We are willing to use the government to dictate behavior to people with whom we disagree.
  • We use single-issues in deciding who will represent us in the complexity of governing.

We may have a few healthy behaviors, too, like:

  • We stop to help each other, especially in disasters and emergencies.
  • We reach out to call a friend or neighbor we haven’t seen in a while.
  • We read or watch news that we disagree with, to expand our knowledge.
  • We prioritize relationships over politics.

Democracy is our process of deciding how to live together in our society - of governing ourselves through disagreements. It’s messy and good citizenship requires us to be committed to the process, rather than getting our way. Today’s American society seems to have veered away from the values of democracy; of being one American family first, with many individual differences.

Healthy families know how to fight. They know how to have fun with each other. And ultimately, they have each other’s backs. As a society, we would have better results with these types of family values.

Let us commit to one another – to a nation that uplifts every citizen with equal opportunity and provides equal treatment under the law. These are results I’m committed to.


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Private Prisons and ICE Exploit Loopholes, Harm Communities

While Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) terrorizes Black and brown communities with racial profiling, kidnappings, inhumane treatment, fatal abuse, and killings, private prison investors are asking how ICE can detain more people to increase their profits. Private prison corporations have long profited from immigration enforcement, but they are expecting a financial windfall under the current administration. These corporations are politically and financially situated to rapidly increase detention capacity and cash in on the president’s goal of deporting one million people per year. Stopping these corporations from lining politicians’ campaign coffers is a necessary first step in ensuring that our government is accountable to the people it serves, rather than the corporations it contracts with.

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As live sporting events go, nothing comes close to the World Cup. I was in the stands when South Africa, my birth country, hosted the event in 2010 after decades of exclusion from global athletics. In June of this year, I had a full-circle moment when South Africa played in the knockout rounds for the first time, and I stood with my two American sons, arms around them, singing South Africa's anthem — the only national anthem that weaves multiple languages into a single, unifying song. Later in the week, I was in the stands again, cheering Spain's win over Austria, a country to which my only connections are a brief holiday…and the fact that my mother's family fled from there during the Inquisition.

The magic of the World Cup is that everyone in the stands wears the flags and shirts of countries that are “theirs” in some way. For some, it’s where they were born; for others, where they live or where their ancestors hailed from. For some, it is simply a country they have adopted for the afternoon. It is impossible to know how deep a person’s connection runs simply by looking at them. And next to a person waving one team’s colors is a stranger, family member, or close friend supporting the opposing team—or wearing the jersey of a team that isn’t playing that day at all.

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As part of a collaboration between The Fulcrum's NextGen initiative and Made By Us, The Fulcrum is publishing Letters to America, a series created through the Youth250 project that invites Gen Z to reflect on the nation’s past, present, and future as the United States approaches its 250th anniversary.

On June 4, 1876, on the eve of our Nation’s centennial, the Transcontinental Express completed its inaugural voyage across America’s newly constructed coast-to-coast railroad, traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific in just 83 hours. This milestone marked the end of the Railroad Race and the beginning of the Gilded Age, epitomized by its rail barons and drastic wealth disparity.

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