Where’s Our Robin Hood?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenjavier/11932333354
The answer may surprise you.
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As our middle class continues to shrink, and regular people’s struggles worsen under the weight of the increasing cost of housing, and so much more, we start to see more folks finally recognizing the power imbalance everywhere. While a few choose to act in response, for most this usually leads to a frustrated outcry for a savior of some sort.
Where’s Our Robin Hood?
The story of Robin Hood is a great one. A man on a mission to rob from the oppressive and greedy rich to give to the struggling poor as a way rebalance the scales and restore both fairness and justice in his world.
It’s a great story, but we often forget the other part of it. Robin Hood started out as Robin of Loxley who was born into a privileged life of an elite noble family that benefited from generational wealth and power. This allowed them to be among the very few who could legally own land, granted them access to a quality education, and enabled them to freely communicate with, and thus influence, the powerful nobility who controlled their nation.
He likely would have continued his charmed life if not for the shifts in political power and the greed of the nobility who took it all from him when he was away and wasn’t looking.
The legend suggests he was motivated by a sense of justice and fairness, but was this true, or was he motivated more by a deep desire for revenge and a need to find a new way to support himself? If we’re charitable, perhaps it was a bit of both.
There are still those who point to his legend and say “the rich are stealing from you, join my fight to take it back!” However, all too often they’re really about something else.
Robin Hood’s legend was long ago co-opted by other rich folks who still steal from the poor, but do so while masterfully hidden within a spectacle of marginally consequential good deeds, vanity dressed up as activism, cleverly crafted variations of keeping up with the Jones guilt trips, and faux-outrage performance art. All of this is designed, with algorithmic precision, to make us feel good about being robbed.
Far too often we decide to support a leader that we’re convinced will change everything, but even when they “win” these days almost nothing seems to happen. Often this is because they were a fraud, but sometimes it’s because they can’t do it alone.
Robin Hood wasn’t alone in his fight. The true heroes in his story were the Merry Men who worked together to fight for real change.
Today we spend far too much time looking for a savior everywhere other than within our mirrors.
Today’s Robin Hood isn’t a person at a podium who says they’ll fix everything that’s broken. Instead it’s you, and it’s us.
Today’s Robin Hood is in Our Mirrors
Today’s Robin Hood is the many people who choose to get involved in a host of different ways. They put time into becoming informed and paying attention to what’s happening in their government, from their local City Hall to the White House, as well as within their own neighborhoods.
Today’s Robin Hood regularly communicates with their elected representatives in an informed manner that makes it clear they’re watching and they’ll hold those representatives to account on election day.
Today’s Robin Hood Votes!
Today’s Robin Hood is the everyday working family standing up for themselves alongside all the other working families. We’ve forgotten our power is in our numbers.
We don’t need the rich and powerful, they need us!
Today’s Robin Hood no longer assumes someone is on their side because they say so. Instead they demand proof. Flowery words without action is what got us here and Today’s Robin Hood no longer buys it.
Today’s Robin Hood is the everyday working stiff who helps their neighbors, joins a union, volunteers in their community, supports local charities, backs a real ally running for office, or chooses to be that ally and runs themselves.
Today’s Robin Hood is you, is me, is all of us standing up and choosing to finally ignore the flood of propaganda and rhetoric to instead loudly demand action and insist on seeing the receipts.
Today’s Robin Hood is in our mirrors. It’s up to us to put this hero to work and fight to truly rebalance the scales by taking back the power it seems we forgot we had.
This won’t be an easy fight or a short one. In fact, it can never really end because complacency in good times is a big part of what got us here. This fight will be hard, but if we want our children to have prospects beyond a modern version of serfdom we have to wage it relentlessly.
Today’s Robin Hood is You. Gather with your Merry Men and start sticking it to the greedy elite and the institutions that keep them in power.
Be the change.