Reproductive Justice is Part of Liberation

Hi Friends,

Little did I know when I wrote about grief last time, that it would only be compounded further only a few weeks later. I hope you are taking time to process what you’re feeling and that you are kind and patient with yourself.

I need to take my own advice. Having my kids home for the summer has meant that I find fewer opportunities alone for me to openly process my outrage, my grief, my refusal to accept a world in which my (currently female identifying) children will have fewer rights than I have had in my lifetime. I can tell that my emotions are close to the surface and ready to be freed. After I dropped my kids off at camp for the day and got back in the car this morning, the tears started falling, even before my music (a “Power Mix” I created in November 2016) turned on.

My mantra for this work, “Listen. Amplify. Follow. In Solidarity.” applies to all justice work, including reproductive justice. Please seek out local organizations that are helping people get the access they need to health care services. Large national orgs have huge endowments and are not as dependent upon donations as small, independent nonprofits are. Support those who are already doing this work, however you are able.

Whatever your stance on abortion, it is undeniable now (if it ever was) that women in our country are oppressed, alongside/overlapping with additionally marginalized people who will experience increased oppression more acutely than White women will. A majority of the population in the United States is now overtly oppressed by the racist, sexist, and misogynistic systems in place.

White, straight, cis-gendered men have the most power in our culture and must be part of liberation work, just as White people must be part of anti-racism work. To use a comic book cliche, with great power comes great responsibility. So the question becomes, are you an oppressor or a liberator? Will you ignore or deny oppression or will you work in solidarity with those who resist it? Just as with anti-racism work, if you are silent then you are complicit.

If you’re ready to take action, here are some suggestions:

- White Awake training for White Men

- See this Teen Vogue article for guidance in supporting community organizing and collaborative work.

- If you’re thinking about how to be an organizer in your community and how to work towards a community where everyone is welcome, consider Garrett Buck’s questions.

- How to Show Up For Abortion Access

- Work on supporting related issues like affordable child care, universal healthcare, paid family and medical leave, contraception access, expansion of SNAP programs, a federally funded school lunch program, a permanent child care tax credit, and maternal mortality rates especially for marginalized populations.

Whatever you feel about abortion, the work needed now is about inclusion.
The work needed now is about how we take care of each other.
The work needed now is about finding common ground to ensure that everyone has what they need.

The work needed now is not about vilifying everyone who disagrees with you. From a newsletter by Loretta J. Ross (7/14/22, emphasis mine): “As Fania E. Davis said in The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice: Black Lives, Healing, and US Social Transformation (Justice and Peacebuilding), ‘A punitive, vengeful response harms us psychologically.’ It also harms us as a society if we continue to inflict harm on each other with our unhealed and unaddressed traumas. We must protect the human rights of the person who was harmed, as well as those of the person who committed the harm. We must recognize that harm to another is also self-harm because of our interrelatedness.”

If we want a better outcome, a better life for everyone in this country, we have to stop attacking each other, find common ground, and work together to make it happen. White supremacy is doing everything it can to divide us. Do not let it.

Please also invest your time and energy in voting rights efforts, bolster up our democracy so that a small minority of people cannot dictate their values and priorities to a majority that does not agree with them. Change can happen on every scale, locally, regionally, and nationally. But it will not happen if we take our form of government for granted or if we spend our time yelling at each other. Take steps to engage in positive actions that reaffirm the way you want our country to be. Envision it and work in that direction. And bring as many people as you can along with you.

Emily
Listen. Amplify. Follow. In Solidarity.

The Power of Names and Grief

Hi Friends,

My heart has been so heavy, like something is pressing on my chest. Emotional grief, compounded with the onset of covid in our household, has had me focusing on everyday activities and very little else for the last couple of weeks.

Even so, there are moments of clarity. The power of names and the power of grief, for example.

The act of naming things can be a path to truth, which can lead to growth. Naming an institution’s role in upholding the system of slavery. Naming the dynamics in a relationship as abusive. Naming historical and current realities of one’s lived experience.

Names are also memory and legacy. Many families name their children after beloved ancestors, linking past and present in a person’s identity. Sometimes names cause families to protect a particular reputation or status that the legacy of their name has achieved, often tailoring to the point of a break with reality. The names of schools, roads, and institutions declare who should be remembered.

Names and their use carry the power of being seen or erased. Using a person’s chosen name (and their associated pronouns) or refusing to. Renaming enslaved people or indigenous children in boarding schools using English/western conventions, erasing their cultural identities and connections. Removing last names, breaking a familial connection, uprooting people and separating them from each other. Erasing an aspect of people’s humanity.

So when a deadly event occurs, it is right to name the victims of violence, to commit their names to our memories, to choose to never forget them. To let their names, their humanity, propel us forward in making changes that will prevent another such event. It should make us pause and consider — how will our names be remembered?

There is another set of names to be considered and how we use them can have a particular power. Naming perpetrators, naming slaveholders, naming legislators. Holding people accountable for their action/inaction, showing them that their names and the ways they are remembered are not guaranteed to be positive or lasting.

For example, John Boozman, Mo Brooks, Mike Crapo, Rand Paul, Donald Bacon, Andy Barr, Cliff Bentz, Michael Burgess, John Carter, Madison Cawthorn, Michael Cloud, Andrew Clyde, Rick Crawford, Dan Crenshaw, Jake Ellzey, Pat Fallon, Drew Ferguson, Mike Flood, Virginia Foxx, Tony Gonzales, Kay Granger, Marjorie Greene, Brett Guthrie, French Hill, Richard Hudson, Jr., Patrick McHenry, Carol Miller, Greg Murphy, Troy Nehls, Greg Pence, Hal Rogers, Mike Rogers, David Rouzer, Chip Roy, Pete Sessions, Mike Simpson, Adrian Smith, Van Taylor, GT Thompson, Jr., Beth Van Duyne, Randy Weber, Sr., Steve Womack (US Senators and Representatives endorsed by the NRA in 2022).

So now for the power of grief. Based on my observations of American culture, our social conventions around grief demand restraint, control, expression of emotions only in private. In many cultures around the world, grief is shown in public lamentation, in community expressions of loss. What would it look like for our communities to express our grief in a more public way, to stop hiding our tears and our wails and our screams? What would it look like to speak the names of those who have died through voices that break with the knowledge of humanity lost? What would it look like to chant the names of those who allow violence in our communities, in our schools, to continue unchallenged, to call them out ritually, publicly, as part of our expression of grief and outrage?

In times like this, we must use our voices and our power in any way we can find, including (and maybe especially) in ways that make those in power uncomfortable.

Emily
Listen. Amplify. Follow. In Solidarity.

We Are Not Powerless

Hi Friends,

This is not about Buffalo and it is about Buffalo. That’s because Buffalo (and so many more) is about each and every one of us. And I’m not sure I even know what to say. But since I am a White person, I know that my role is to speak to my people, so here goes.

I went to the grocery store today. The entire time I was there, I was acutely, painfully aware of how powerless I felt, how deeply my heart ached that I am constantly, actively and passively separated from being in true community with my neighbors because of the white supremacist culture we are all harmed by.

There are barriers to building those relationships everywhere we look, including inside ourselves. My heartache is always there, just freshly exposed by the most recent racist violence. These wounds we suffer cannot heal when they are reopened over and over again with new names of community members murdered and new locations of tragedy to tally in our national consciousness.

I also understand how essential it is that I use every ounce of my willpower and determination to ensure that anti-racist work continues and grows and that each and every one of us participates in dismantling white supremacy. And I honestly don’t know what to say to encourage more people to start and/or continue the self-work and community work that is needed. But I refuse to give up, so here I am, writing to each of you.

This work is both urgent and long-term, and while it is happening in many places, we need to keep going, to keep doing more. White supremacy culture influences everything we do, every institution and organization and government office and it fights back when challenged. And yet it must be challenged or it will continue to spread and grow and harm and kill. Do not imagine that “good people” will be spared from its effects — we are each already harmed and often blinded to that harm. Choose to see the harm so that you can choose to fight against it.

If you’re already feeling overwhelmed because you’re already fighting for something else, do not see this as an “extra” cause to take on. See it as a shift in the WAY you fight for justice, in whatever manner inspires and sustains you. If you’re focused on reproductive rights, do it in an anti-racist way. If you’re focused on environmental justice and combating climate change, do it in an anti-racist way. If you’re focused on educational equity, do it in an anti-racist way. If you’re focused on politics or criminal justice or housing or poverty or hunger or anything else you’re focused on, do it in an anti-racist way.

Do you know how? What barriers do you face to doing this work?

Some oversimplified guidance for White people doing anti-racist work:
(1) Commit to the self-work for the rest of your life. Keep learning, keep apologizing, keep unlearning biases and assumptions, keep growing. Use self-care so you don’t burn out.

(2) Don’t do this work alone. Find others who will support you, help you grow, listen to your failures and struggles, and encourage you to keep going. If you don’t have a person like this in your life, contact me and I’ll be that person for you.

(3) Choose solidarity (doing with) over helping/supporting (doing for). Build relationships with the communities you want to work with in an inclusive way, following existing leadership and trusting people to know where they want to go.

(4) Wherever you are, show up in an anti-racist way and be open to adjusting as you earn the trust of those you are working with. Earn that trust every day in the way you show up, the way that you grow, the way that you listen.

Ok, here’s the hardest one (again, for White people):
(5) DO NOT exclude people who disagree with you or challenge your beliefs. Turning people away, excluding people and banishing them because they aren’t on an anti-racist path yet (or as “woke” as you) will always undermine our efforts. We must be welcoming to all because white supremacy will always make white people feel like they belong, even as it harms them.

Anti-racist efforts must be as inclusive as we want our communities and institutions and governments to be. We must model the solidarity and liberation of the world we are trying to create. As my dear friend Whitney taught me several years ago, do not allow your anti-racist work to send people towards racism. Bring them with you.

Emily
Listen. Amplify. Follow. In Solidarity.