on doing what we can do, and rescue
I’m approaching this election with a mix of dread and hope.
Dread includes the global question of how we heal. Asking, how in the world do you reconcile those who separate a child from one’s parent without any path back to reunite them?
Dread includes the personal. Wondering, is it safe for a naturalized citizen to stay in the country when Stephen Miller has already created an Office of Denaturalization?
That dread comes from knowing enough about power dynamics to know this moment is not an aberration but a continuation of a long history.
I’ve recently spent a year studying the history of American women. And learned how that group has historically chosen to step on and over women of color to get, or at least chase, power for themselves. Studying them explained to me why 47% of white women voted for a misogynist and racist to “lead” America.
Years ago, in an online group, I was one of the few who initially raised questions about the book Lean In. On the pay equity issue, I questioned if any brown or black woman actually got pay equity simply by asking for it. In that discourse, the leader of the group shut me down so hard that many others had reached out to ask what in the world was going on. Had I offended her? Was there a back issue? I didn’t know at the time. It seemed odd to everyone who witnessed it.
Later, I would learn that the group leader was being paid to promote Lean In. She got something in return for supporting the premise that all women (but especially women of color) must be somehow fixed. It was not dissimilar to how the suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony got funding for their newsletter and lecture tour, in exchange for allowing a white supremacist to “editorialize” in them.
It’s how white women have often chosen pecking order power, not the power of purpose.
So, I wrote about that recently in a piece called “WWWWD?” While I know it’s likely too pointed a take to be especially popular, I do hope it provokes a new framing of the question. Does any act leading merely to improving the pecking order result in actual progress?
And so I guess this is to say, I live in hope.
Not the hope of changing any certain person, or even causing a shift in a particular demographic. But the hope that comes from a belief in an idea. The idea that each of us counts, just by being ourselves.
You do not need to step on me to rise, nor I on you. It’s not an idea that is well-understood. At least, not yet. But it’s an idea that has roots in the work of Gandhi, as he fought the British.
It has roots in the work of Sojourner Truth, Angela Davis and, of course, Gloria Steinem, who have helped us see our fates are linked, not ranked. It is in the business roots of Tom Peters, who advocated that each of us, regardless of title and trappings, has to find a way to contribute the value only one has. One day, we will see and be seen for ourselves. Onlyness.
I read this piece a few months ago, on the Stockdale Paradox, and ever since, I’ve returned to it as a guide.
It is about a prisoner of war, who talked about getting through that hard time. He never lost faith that he would be rescued. But, he never tied rescue to a specific date. He talked of how others were driven crazy by pinning their hopes on believing, say, we’ll be saved by Christmas. Then, when it didn’t happen (something entirely outside their control), they lost their shit. Instead, he said, he never lost hope that he would be rescued, and then he focused on getting through that particular day the best he could.
That’s kind of how I’m approaching election night.
I have faith that one day, we’ll each count, to see and be seen as valuable. Not because we’re educated or better than x or y, but simply because. I work on making each day of mine count towards that goal. Just whatever I can do. If it’s writing one email back to a person or whatever. Just doing what one can. I have no expectation of when and how it’ll happen. I just know this is how I can make it through.
Of course, I hope more people will join in. I mean, it’s our aspiration for this column. How each person who joins us becomes part of the rebel alliance. Each person who funds us knows they are sustaining this work. And if they want to join us to add their bit to it, we can grow in our strength.
And a bonus video to get you through:
