I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have been having a hard time staying on top of all the bad news today and feeling ok. Two things helped me. First, this Twitter thread from the amazing Cate Denial:
In 2014, Angela Davis gave a talk at Southern Illinois University, in which she said "“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time."
There is a lot of terrible news on our feeds right now. To list each piece is to exist in a space where we’re overwhelmed. We have real reasons to feel fear, despair, and exhaustion.
We cannot individually answer to every call for support and funding and physical help that we see articulated. We often feel small and insignificant as a result. We wonder what difference we can possibly make.
It doesn’t help to Pollyanna our way through the situation—to act as if terrible things aren’t happening, or to tell the grieving and scared that they should buck up and look on the bright side.
But—as I have heard @prisonculture say more than once—if we want better, we first have to *imagine* better. We have to see in our mind’s eye the just world in which we want to live.
And so I’m asking myself, this morning, about that world. I’m imagining it in my mind’s eye. I’m taking stock of what I can do – now, locally, meaningfully – to bring it closer. My $5 is better than not giving $5. My letter writing is better than not letter writing.
My showing up in whatever way I can is better than not showing up, and my showing up helps those who cannot show up right now. And sometime in the future, when I can’t show up, they will.
This is not just a battle of money and time and politics (although it is that). It’s a battle of end games—of what we see in our mind’s eye that gives us joy and sustenance alongside wrestling with the stuff that is so hard.
Our rage and fear and disbelief are absolutely appropriate. But so is imagining a just future. Today I’m reminding myself not to lose sight of a radically transformed world.
The second was this great article How To Support Abortion Rights In Texas Today that was full of ideas for action.
Sending love to all of you and looking forward to feeling refreshed enough (hopefully soon) to come back and write more Good News Roundups.
xxoo
Goodie