Remember that this regime wants to keep us overwhelmed, confused, upset. They want us to give up out of sheer fatigue. AND also know that if we choose our battles, choose our focus, then we can take smaller breaks, times to breathe, without totally tapping out. We don’t have to give up.
We all need all of us. Just as when we say, “Black Lives Matter,” it doesn’t mean “Children with Cancer don’t Matter,” so choosing a focus doesn’t mean that resisting other terrors doesn’t matter.
I know that a lot of us are saying, “But I care about so many things! How can I choose?” Our care and compassion can fall into paralysis and hopelessness.
One friend and colleague said to me two days ago, “But I have like fourteen things! A hundred things! And I feel like all I do is write and call elected officials.”
That matters. Not everyone has the persistence, skill, or tolerance to do that work. Good on you for not giving up!
Unfortunately, there are so many avenues to go down — so many things to focus on. Choose one that is near to you, recognizing and honoring that there are many, and then support people who have chosen different from you, and offer them solidarity.
Perhaps we begin by protecting the rights of people with disabilities. Resisting the refusal of federal funds for disaster and infrastructure in majority Democrat areas. Trying to create a humanitarian corridor for Gaza. Creating reproductive health options across state and national lines. Calling out anti-Black policing. Eating well and getting enough sleep.
Protecting people perceived to be immigrants in our communities. Supporting current and former civil servants. Walking with vulnerable people through highly policed areas. Creating beautiful spaces of respite. Protesting the occupation of DC and the illegal deployment of National Guardswomen and -men wherever it happens. Keeping our money working locally. Demanding that Democratic and Democratic Socialist leaders fight for us. Getting vaccinated if we can and masking up to keep ourselves and others safe. Keeping banned books on our shelves and sharing them with children. Babysitting.
photo by T Thorn Coyle
Offering comfort, care, and money to those without homes whose shelter is consistently destroyed by police. Dancing your resistance into the ground. Making altars for prayer, remembrance, resistance, and intercession. Planting pollinator gardens where lawns used to be. Supporting indigenous reparations and indigenous efforts to combat the criminalization of immigration, especially on stolen land. Making a sign expressing your resistance and standing on a street corner, alone or with others. Refusing to carry out orders that assault the Constitution you have sworn to protect.
Calling, texting, messaging your trans+ and other queer friends, your Spanish-speaking and immigrant friends, your Black friends, your indigenous friends, your Muslim friends, your disabled friends, your autistic friends… Refusing, absolutely refusing to be separated from love.
Support leaders who are fighting hard publicly. Support those who are fighting hard in the shadows. Help each other not give up.
The list goes on and on. Tears are streaming quietly down my face as I type. But “not all tears are an evil,” and maybe my propensity for crying, for being sensitive, is a strength. It’s part of what has moved me to write to you today, at least.
Sam Gamgee reminds us (repeatedly) in The Lord of the Rings that there’s something in this world worth fighting for, even if it seems so small as to be beneath notice. Even if it’s “just” the taste of the first summer strawberries with cream or hearing the birds nesting in the hazel thicket.
The Strong Women of Larry’ Mitchell’s utopian/dystopian and very-banned book, The Faggots and their Friends between Revolutions, remind us, “We will get our asses kicked, but we will win.”
The Revs. Theodore Parker and Martin Luther King, Jr. remind us that the moral arc of the universe is long, but (if we pull, if we struggle, if we don’t give up) it bends towards justice.
You matter. You matter. You matter.
And an 18-year-old long-distance runner of my acquaintance, K, who said at the beginning of his running career, “…you know why I win? Because when the other kids give up, I don’t.”
Be like K, and don’t give up.
Offer your skills and experience where they can be put to use. You have them. And if they feel like they don’t matter or won’t make a difference, that’s the power of authoritarianism and white supremacy at work too, convincing you that unless you do everything and do it perfectly, you don’t matter. You matter. You matter. You matter. You matter. And every ounce of effort you exert on behalf of a loving, just, and verdant world matters.
The photo above is from Thorn Coyle, who caught this worker bee in her daily efforts. Remember how small she is, this bee. Her work matters, she matters, so does mine, and so does yours.