How Do We Hold It All?

Aug 31

Dear reader,

I will begin with a couple of my core beliefs:

I believe in the complete dismantling of current U.S. systems in order to end the needless suffering of all marginalized people.
I understand that a true revolution will require that some of us give up the many or few privileges and comforts that we have, and I am prepared to accept that because I want everyone to live with dignity.
Liberation work is not easy nor comfortable but still necessary.

I also care about my body, mind, and spirit. I care about how I feel in my day-to-day life. I love working, but I also want to live. I want to be well & grounded, strong & smiling easily, open & wise.

What I feel more often is: uneasy, frantic, isolated and eager for more isolation, useless

like a torn up paper bag letting the wind widen my tears and drift me toward the river

to drown or toward a fresh pile of shit

to feel sorry for myself or toward a very clean window with a view

of genocide happening right over there

to drown again most miserably.

I know we are all bearing witness to a genocide.

When was the last time you bore witness to your own life?

Have you noticed the expansive and tiny ways our government has abandoned you or your neighbor? Do you know where your local jail or prison is and how the people live in cages? Do you owe some corporation money for simply being sick? Is there lead in your water?

I know some of you, like me, can’t help but notice. For some of us, it gets thrown in our faces all too often and keeps breaking our hearts. For the rest of us—maybe white, maybe getting paid six figures, maybe neutralized by religion, etc.—it might be harder to notice the panic attack you are always trying to suppress on your way to work, the hopelessness buried in your indifference or silence, the life force lacking in your work and in your eyes, the way you dehumanize or laugh at a Black man living with mental illness for attacking the judge refusing to grant him probation, and every time you stop short of asking a powerful question.

There’s a genocide happening right over there, and that genocide is a project that our government has chosen to support and fund with our tax dollars. Doesn’t that make genocide feel like our next door neighbor, like Riker’s Island and Flint’s water crisis right over there?

I want to notice it all because I want to stay ready. I see with History and have a family to protect.