Tuesday night, every post I came across seemed focused on Georgia’s runoff. The tone shifted from tense to optimistic to celebratory. And at the end, amidst all the Stacey Abrams praise and quotes from Rev. Warnock was one very different in tone from a Black friend in Oregon.
“Get ready for the backlash.”
I’ve learned that my Black friends have the clearest perception of our country’s reality. Twelve hours later I logged off a work meeting to scenes of the capitol being infiltrated by terrorist militias.
To be honest, it’s hard to find the words for this one. I know I just posted about the importance of using your voice. When I do so, I try to find the words that people need to hear, and to make the invisible visible.
It’s hard to find words when all of this happened in such plain sight.
It’s hard to find words when none of this is new to the marginalized communities who’ve warned of this for forever. Or when the people who open the gates to terror, or the ones who benefit from it, cling to every bit of flawed reasoning that allows them to stay open.
Words matter. Using your voice matters, and using it to catalyze action is necessary. But if today that seems murky, step one is simply feeling it all. My favorite quote by Henri Nouwen reminds me of the importance of thick skin and a soft heart. “While we live in a world subject to the evil one, we belong to God. Let us mourn, and let us dance.”
A few simple reminders are still worth the time:
• Saying you expect this kind of political unrest in Latin/African/ME countries but not here is rooted in racism and undermine the U.S.’ role in fostering those.
• Now is not the time to tone-police or gaslight BIPOC reactions. You can try again never.
• The work means drawing the line between what you see on screens and what you talk about at dinner tables, practice in the workplace, and allow into your lives.