Each other’s magnitude and bond

Despite the unabashed hope in my last post, I’m not naive enough to think that one stellar and historically groundbreaking Black woman Justice joining the liberal wing of the current Supreme Court is going to be able to help turn thing around right away. After all, it took little more than a week for the conservative majority of the court to set fire to Roe, privacy protections, women’s healthcare, Miranda, gun safety, climate action, and the separation of church and state. The fight to restore these fundamental rights and to preserve other rights they’re still coming for—marriage equality, voting rights, contraception, so much more—will last generations, and will need to be engaged on literally all fronts. But what choice do we have but to stay on the field to make a better world for our children and grandchildren? Some days I fear the battle is already lost, and I am wandering in the wilderness, blind with anger and despair. On those days I stay close to home, reading, working, recharging, until I can remember that the battle isn’t ever lost unless we stop fighting. I’m exhausted beyond imagining sometimes. Just worn the fuck out. I know you must be, too. So let’s rest when we have to, but let’s also keep getting back up because a luta continua. Because as the poet and griot Gwendolyn Brooks so perfectly put it, “We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”

Photo: Pride umbrellas at Cantina Rooftop NYC