I was fully prepared to wear black and sizzle in my own despair today. The barrage of damage from the hallowed halls of the Supreme Court has left me reeling in fits of rage and sadness. It has admittedly been difficult to be productive at work. It’s been hard to even show up in my life in all the ways I need to. After the last several years, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and hopeless. I feel it, too. Curling up in a ball in the corner as I did on election night 2016 is not something I’m keen to repeat, and by all means, complacency is not an option.
I’m fired up this Fourth of July.
We have work to do. Let’s start with an etch-a-sketch shake. None of us learned history accurately. We all know intuitively that white men alone did not build America. When I was growing up I always wondered why we never learned about women, except for Betsy Ross. It never sat well with me, and even as a young girl, I knew something was awry in my history books. And here we are today, women being diminished, controlled, erased, harmed. All government sanctioned.
The injustices abound on all fronts. America has yet to come to a reckoning of any kind. We live on indigenous, stolen land and don’t blink at the geographic monikers of native origin. We conflate terms like “racist” and “systemic racism,” erring on the side of protecting fragility of the dominant caste. America was built on systems that propelled white, male, landowners at the cost of laying a foot on the backs of others, all while the country was literally built on the backs of those oppressed. Let’s peel back the layers of history to come to terms with this.
We are at a tipping point. Learning our history will ensure we don’t repeat it. Let’s foster the philosophical foundations that birthed this country. But this time, let’s use a critical lens to examine our genesis to build a country of possibility for all of us. It’s begins with dismantling patriarchal, white supremacist systems of oppression and examing our own roles in upholding them. My friends and I have been discussing this a lot lately.
I find comfort in knowing I’m not alone.
- Read the book Caste by Isabel Wilkerson.
- Register to vote.
- Register others to vote.
- Keep calling and calling out your local, state, and federal elected officials. All of them – House, Senate, governor, attorneys general.
- Stay loud.
- Protest.
- March.
- Run for office.
- Embrace curiosity, think critically, question assumptions, learn.
- Donate to organizations committed to abortion access, racial justice, gun sense, protecting LGBTQ rights, and preventing environmental racism.
- Talk to young people to listen, learn, and engage them to spread the word for them and their peers to vote.
- Volunteer for a campaign.
- Seek fellowship.
- Rest.
- Chase joy.
The victims shall become victors.
We will all rise together, and as they say, no one is free until we are all free. All the patriotic platitudes of the day won’t camouflage this, and we know it in our core. Living under the banner of fear and hate and bigotry is no way to live. I take comfort in knowing how many people are dedicated to justice and freedom, no matter when or how they came to this battle. America looks like me, an brown girl immigrant whose parents sacrificed comfort, risked so much, and embraced a country that has not loved us back fully. Yet here we are, immigrants who have never taken for granted what America means to us and actively participating in this fragile democracy of ours. Today, I choose optimism over defeat. Together, we will manifest what this country can be. We owe it to our children and theirs in our wake.
Onward, America!
And so on this July 4th, when I am not feeling so patriotic, instead of waving the flag, I’ll show you my peace sign.
Show me your peace sign
When there’s no sign of peace
From the north to the south
To the west to the east
From the top one percent to every man on the street
Every woman rising up and every child in the Middle East
It’s the little things in this great big world
And it don’t matter if you’re a boy or a girl
And it don’t matter if you’re someone in between
I know you know what I mean
I wanna be standing next to you
Standing next to you
When the revolution comes