For a while I convinced myself it would be okay. That the world would not get so overwhelming and full of hate. But not today. Today I woke up and it all just cracked.
I have had enough. I have seen enough of what the world is possible of. I can’t even. The hateful speech and the way people twist the law, their words. The feelings that fill me is more than rage, it is disillusionment, disappointment, frustration, and anger: a fierce blinding rage. Rage that I have to rage. I got so burned out during college doing my anti-sweatshop work because I was so tired of being angry, when no one else was. When I was met with apathy and my rage burned a hole in me. It has taken years to bounce back.
But things are a changing. My self-care tells me I need to give myself a break. But my heart tells me that while I do that, others livelihoods are being threated. I do not have the luxury of being on the sidelines. I belong out there. I do and so does everyone else. Because this is wrong. I can feel it in my bones, in my fingers.
This instinct, has been brewing. I felt it when I was young and convinced it would be easier to try to fit in than embrace who I was. I felt it when I was raped and every day after when I convinced myself it would go away. I felt it when I saw the workers in Latin America and comforted myself with what I was doing. My body is revolting. It is telling me this is wrong. My stomach lurches and my head buzzes with the injustice.
It is not easier to be silent, to be on the sidelines, to observe – it is complicity. When we are on the sidelines, we have the privilege of not engaging. Not everyone has that. We need to stand up, if not for someone else, our neighbor, if not for our future children, then for ourselves, for our sense of dignity and our sense of humanity.