Can You Imagine...

Hi Friends,

I hope you are all finding time and space for rest and joy even as our world, our country, and our communities are struggling and suffering in ways that are new and also not new.

I was so grateful to be able to attend Denver's second No Kings march last weekend, surrounded by inflatable costumes (thank you, Portland!), creative signs, and raised voices. I have complete respect for those (including many of my friends) who prefer not to attend such events or cannot for various reasons; we all find our ways to participate in resistance work. When I attend protest marches, I feel energized and connected and inspired and I appreciate the work by Indivisible and other organizations who made these peaceful events possible.

The purpose of the No Kings wasn't because anyone expects those in the current administration to change their behavior or who they are. Their hateful, damning legacies will last much longer than they will and they will be remembered for their choices. The rest of us will, too. (I mean this as an opportunity, not as coercion or shame to contribute or participate or resist in a particular way.)

What legacy do you want to be a part of? What did your ancestors (familial or movement ancestors) hope for you? What did they work towards that has benefitted you and those you love? Think of the cross-class, multiracial movements of our not so recent past: the Abolitionist movement, the Women's Suffrage movement, the Labor movement, the Civil Rights movement, the Environmental movement, the LGBTQ+ movement. Those movements are not over and their efforts were not in vain; we must seek it out and recognize it, have gratitude for it, and imagine how our own work will impact those we will never meet.

Anand Giridharadas wrote about a recent speech by Sherrilyn Ifill about planting for the future. He shared,

"from the end of slavery through desegregation and Jim Crow, what many Black activists and thinkers and leaders did was plant. They built. They sowed the seeds of things that weren’t necessarily going to help immediately, weren’t necessarily going to fight the power right then, but were going to facilitate the birth of what would come next. In a sense, this is neither straightforward resistance nor is it simply insisting on the right to take care of your own private sphere. It is planting seeds that will bloom in some other later day, so that when that day comes, people can thrive."

The joyful, patriotic, and brave protests last weekend were an affirmation of an America for all of us, a willingness to imagine something new, something better. We behaved with care for each other, we represented an inclusive and diverse population of people, we showed up for each other. We felt what community is, what belonging is, what it feels like to be included. Those feelings, no matter how you connect with your community, are what will sustain us, what will inspire us to keep moving forward, what will comfort us when we rest, and what will remind us to feel joy even when paired with intense grief.

I am not alone in imagining a better future for all of us. A friend shared a post about imagination by Natalie Brite, in which she says, "We are not here to rebuild the same systems that failed us. We’re here to write new stories about what it means to be human… to redefine success, reimagine progress, and re-root ourselves in community and care." Mariame Kaba expands on the idea that we must imagine something new as we reject the old. Scot Nakagawa writes about how we must build something new rather than recreate what has already existed.

I hope that when we raise our voices to chant "This is what democracy looks like!" we envision a world in which everyone belongs, in which everyone has respect and access to opportunity and that we find ways to live up to the ideals upon which our country is founded, inspired to do better than our past failings. It means defending the humanity of everyone, even those who might not recognize our own.

For example, in September when political violence felt complicated and inevitable, Indivisible's Ezra Levin wrote, "In the Indivisible movement, we are people who will condemn, with our whole hearts, such violence no matter the target or the perpetrator. We know the path forward is nonviolent, peaceful organizing." Around the same time, The Contrarian's Jennifer Rubin wrote, "Our democracy requires we defend all speakers, not that we ignore the difference between admirable and malignant messages."

Democracy lies in a delicate space between defending humanity and human rights, and permitting hate and violence. How do we include everyone even when we disagree? How do we support a sense of belonging when there is so much pain and so much healing to do?

Rebecca Solnit shared words from a speech by Cleve Jones, who said,

"Among us today are descendants of the original peoples of this land and all those who came here, not to conquer or colonize, but simply to live. Refugees and asylum seekers. Ordinary people who fled war and famine and poverty and repression. People who have always asked for nothing more than the right to live and work and love and care for their families in freedom, with justice. They came to America in search of a dream that has always fallen short, always been flawed, remains incomplete and yet still inspires hope across the world."

I love this description because it includes almost all of us, whose ancestors came to live, even those of European descent. (If you want to explore your ancestral roots with me, contact me here.) Can we see each other as descendants of those who came here simply to live, both recently and long ago? Can we see the promises of what America can be and work together to find ways to make those promises real for each other? Even when it is messy and challenging and painful?

I am inspired by an interview Giridharadas did with Rep. Ro Khanna in which they discussed how divisions in America can be healed. Khanna proposed an approach that recognizes and values the contributions of our ancestors in building this country we share, indicating respect and belonging, "Without excusing the racism, misogyny, or disinformation, beneath those things is a crisis of esteem, of respect, of knowing how you fit." In this way,

"It is an unapologetically integrated vision of America, in which respect can be paid for what a once-majority-white, minority-Black country did to build a foundation of prosperity and institutions and systems and laws and to open that inheritance up, by democratic choice, to people from all over; and respect can be paid to people from every last outpost of the world, from every faith and first language and back story, striving to make it here and make something of themselves."

The conversation turned to the sense of cultural loss that can be felt by people from every background.

"What Khanna was suggesting is that cultural loss, the sense of displacement, even at times having your material conditions improve while your sense of where and how you belong suffers — that these should not be thought of as happening either to these people over here only, or those people over there. They are happening to people over here and over there. Immigrants experience this sense of loss for their reasons. And people who have lived on the same accustomed earth for twenty generations can experience their own sense of loss, not because they have moved but because the ground below has — the economy, the demography, the mores, the authority."

How can we move forward as a collection of people experiencing loss in different ways to build something new that we can all be proud of and feel like we belong to? What steps can we take right now to improve our connections to each other, to validate each others' pain and to start the healing process, to start working on what we need to build together?

Now, for something else wonderful that you can be a part of, check out David Dean's work on his new book Roots Deeper Than Whiteness. I have had the good fortune to work with David on reparative genealogy efforts and I highly recommend his thoughtful, compassionate, and essential work. Also check out his newsletter at Toward Solidarity.

I also want to uplift the BIPoC & LGBTQIA Non-Profit Mutual Aid Fund (thanks to Community Centric Fundraising for sharing this opportunity). Nicole Cardoza uplifted the Defending Our Neighbors Fund.

There are lots of lists out there suggesting ways to take action. The Catalyst Project updated their Troublemakers Guide. Rep. Rashida Tlaib shared resources for defending immigrants and our neighbors. Jewish Voice for Peace created a resource about Project Esther and how efforts to fight Palestine solidarity are being used to undermine movements for social change.

Emily
Listen. Amplify. Follow. In Solidarity.