Today I grieve for every person who feels their future and life are in jeopardy. Who lives in a state where they feel unsafe as a woman or a minority of any kind. I grieve for the women who canceled out their husband’s votes and yet it wasn’t enough. I grieve for every woman who needs a medically necessary abortion but will die because this country has decided they are worthless. For every woman who can’t even make that deeply personal, intimate choice for any reason, period. I grieve for every woman who will choose to find an unsafe way because our country has decided what they can and can’t do with their body without their consent.
I grieve for every trans woman who has been killed. Every LGBTQIA+ person who feels unsafe STILL in the year 2024. Every person who has been made to feel less than human because of their identity, their race, or their gender. I grieve for the people who know they live in a country that can reverse certain rights we fought for so long to achieve. If they came for Roe v. Wade, they will come for others.
I grieve for all the unhoused people that I see more of every day, in my own town and every city I travel to. I grieve for those who can’t or will not or have never gotten proper healthcare. Who are not advocated for or cannot advocate for themselves. I grieve for those who will be further impacted by this economy. For all the people who are not able-bodied and those who don’t realize that one day, you will not be able of body in some way, shape, or form and that this country will not protect you for it.
I grieve for every person who made this decision. Who thinks that this person has their best interest in mind, who thinks that we live in a free country that promises to make our girls and our minorities feel safe and welcome. Who thinks that this will help anyone but white, privileged men feel safe.
Today we grieve, but tomorrow we fight.
When I was growing up, as in many generations, we were taught that fighting for your country meant physically fighting whatever enemy the government pointed you at. As I grew older, and I watched this country move further from the country I was born into, I watched protesting become more prevalent, and with the increase in social media platforms, watched it become shared through a lens outside the news cycle. I support protesting and using your voice wholeheartedly. Not everyone is able-bodied enough to do so, but there are other ways to fight.
Raise and use your voice.
RESIST.
Resist book bans and anything that creates a controlled flow of free information.
Resist the thought that things have to be this way and that they can never change.
Resist the selling of your personal data. You have no idea how valuable it is to the people who will try to control you.
Don’t turn away when someone is being bullied or abused.
Speak out against racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic behavior and speech. They think their words have power, but yours do too.
Social media has power for both good and evil. Use it to share trusted, backed sources of information.
Donate to trusted organizations, even in small amounts.
Question authority.
Volunteer. At libraries, at food shelters, at abortion clinics, anywhere.
Find and/or build community and protect each other.
Educate yourself on the people who have fought for the rights this current government is trying to dismantle. Know what they have been through. See them. Remember them.
Small acts of resistance happen every day. No one person can stop climate change but you can plant a pot of flowers for your local bees. No one person can stop waste, but you can thrift a shirt once in a while. No one person can bring down corporate greed, but you can wake up every morning and ask yourself, “How will I be useless to capitalism today?” (Credit: Brontê Velez) You can question what you’re seeing and hearing on TV, seeing on social media, and reading in the paper. You can question authority. You can question your partner, your friends, your family. You can read and learn. You can and should find community. They want to keep us divided because together we are powerful.
There will never be a perfect person to run this country. There will never be someone we should trust enough to put all our faith and hope in. But I will never forget the day this country chose a felon, a rapist, and a sexist for the second time and that they chose them over a woman.