What if...?
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What if we heard the stories we are told about the United States as things to aspire to rather than things that are true already?
We aren't all free. We don't enjoy equality. This isn't a democracy. But what if, instead of either pretending those things (and more) are true, we could agree that they are all things we want this country to stand for, and we started working for them? In the last five years, I have done a deep dive in to notions of grief and rage - not only personal grief and rage, but collective grief and rage. And one of the things I've learned is about how many layers of old grief we all have stacked on top of each other in our minds and bodies. I once took a class with the phenomenally brilliant Alixa Garcia who said, "there is a difference between grieving a promise broken and the grief that comes when you realize that promise was never real to begin with." The promise of "America" (I shudder to use that word to describe this country, as if the United States is the only - or at least the most important - country in the Americas) was never set out for all of us who inhabit this land. It certainly wasn't meant for those who inhabited it before White, European colonists showed up. The notion of freedom was meant only for a select few, as was opportunity, liberty, and so many more principles. I am encouraging you to mourn the loss of innocence, reckon with the rage that might bubble up inside you when you think about the fact that this country was never designed to be for all of us, or at least not to benefit all of us. And despite some of the strides we have made in the last 400 years or so, it still isn't. The idea of the "melting pot" that was introduced in the early 1900s encouraged assimilation, assumed that everyone had to be the same in order to have a peaceful existence (and that "same" was code for White, European, Christian), and that everyone wanted to be "American." This wasn't about embracing immigrants and their cultures, it was about setting down a specific set of conditions that would make you fit to be a citizen of this country. It didn't celebrate diversity, acknowledge the richness that comes from learning from each other and the indigenous people who were here before us. But what if it could be? What if we all agreed that truly creating a place where we all belong in the truest sense of that word -
was the goal? Those who are most interested in making this country anything "again," are not concerned with making this place a place where we all thrive and grow, where we are all free and equally important. Perhaps the worst part of our particular brand of patriotism is that we have successfully exported it. We have held up these fake ideals to the world for hundreds of years and pretended that we truly embrace the ideas, while acting from the short-sighted, imperialistic attributes of domination, capitalism, misogyny, and white supremacy. We are, decidedly NOT, the greatest country on this planet, not when we talk about freedom and democracy while simultaneously allowing police officers kill people of color with impunity, refusing to let women have the same consideration for health care that men have, encouraging corporations to buy elections, and more. But maybe we could be. Maybe we could turn this around and find ways to build an economy around meeting our collective needs, that isn't reliant on extraction, exclusion, and hoarding. It's possible to create communities that prioritize solidarity, center those whose voices have been squashed, look to ancient traditions of land stewardship to guide us toward restorative practices and transform the way we relate to each other and nature. It requires a deep reckoning with the promise that wasn't ever really real to begin with. It asks us to grieve and then draw on the energy of our rage to reimagine, make radical shifts, and begin to build anew. What if we heard the stories we are told about the United States as things to aspire to rather than things that are true already?
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The SELF Project
Hey there! Some updates from the land of holyshititsonlynineteendaysuntilchristmas. Since the election, I have been alternating between high gear and finding rest where I can to try and absorb all of the feelings. If you follow me on IG or FB, you may have seen my "one small act of resistance" posts, trying to offer folks ideas of things to do that might feel purposeful and helpful during this time. My amazing friend Emily Hine offered to compile the things into one place that we will...
In the last six days, I've gotten a lot of text messages from folks wondering "what now?" If you received my last message a few days ago with post-election thoughts on privilege, you may remember the first thing I cautioned folks to watch out for is Urgency. That energy that comes from our discomfort, from the unpredictability of what is to come, from the powerlessness that we feel when the people in power don't have our best interests in mind (and may even be prioritizing things that will...
This email is something I have deliberated about for the last few days, mostly because my knee-jerk reaction to asking for help - ANY kind of help - is to dismiss that idea out of hand and buckle down and do the thing myself. It is something I have spent decades cultivating; this ability to just figure something out on my own and take pride in my tenacity and perseverance when I'm finally done (exhausted, spent, overwhelmed, but done). But, even if there weren't things I can't handle alone, I...