They’ll undoubtedly tell us to slow down soon.
Yesterday the sun cut through. Shortly, color will start to bloom all around us. The soon-to-be changing seasons feel appropriate right about now. I mean that less like America’s conditions shifting dramatically and more like a reflection of the cycles us citizens find ourselves in and out of. This won’t be our first spring. Nor was this our first winter.
“Freedom is a constant struggle” is one of my favorite quotes. Shout outs to Angela Davis. The phrase swiftly undercuts this silent assumption that, despite the nature of where we’re at, eventually there will be a big climactic win marking the beginning of a happily ever after; a spring complete with sunshine and flowers that comes and stays for good. But America is America. We are tethered to its history no matter what season it is or who happens to be in office and our freedom will not be a linear path with a definitive end. It will be constant. And it will contain struggle.
CLICK TO READ RYSE MEMBER ADRIANA’S THOUGHTS
Joe Biden is our 46th President as of yesterday and this is not a post glossing over the tangible good that this means for so many communities. By the numbers, he has the most diverse cabinet picks in history, the majority being non-white, exactly half being women. There are also a large handful of firsts including a Vice President who is the first woman, Black woman, and South Asian woman to hold that position, the first Black people to run the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense, the first Asian woman US Trade Representative as well as the first South Asian woman to run the Office of Management and Budget. The first Latino people were picked to head of Department of Health and Human services as well as the Department of Homeland Security, the latter being an immigrant himself, who would be in charge of immigration policies and border laws. In the same spirit, the Secretary of Interior, the department that determines policy for federally-owned natural resources, as well as tribal lands, will be lead by a Native American person for the first time. Both the head of the Department of Treasury and the Director of National Intelligence would be the first women of any race to hold that position, the first openly gay person of any race would head the Department of Transportation and, though not technically a cabinet pick, the first trans Assistant Secretary for Health was appointed, to which Biden stated:
“Dr. Rachel Levine will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic — no matter their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability — and meet the public health needs of our country in this critical moment and beyond,” Biden said in a statement. “She is a historic and deeply qualified choice to help lead our administration’s health efforts.”
CLICK TO READ RYSE MEMBER MAHOGANY’S THOUGHTS
Just yesterday Biden immediately canceled the Keystone XL pipeline permit, which came as a detriment to the safety and health of the area’s indigenous people as well their sacred sites. He dissolved Trump’s 1776 Commission, a panel established in response to the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 project that focused on America’s history of slavery, dismantled the Muslim ban, prohibited workplace discrimination in the federal government based on sexuality and gender identity, and revoked the 2017 Interior Enforcement Executive Order, which broadened the categories of undocumented immigrants subject for removal. The latter is expected to be followed by an immigration bill that will include an eight-year pathway to citizenship and an expansion of refugee admissions. It’s as steep a day-one push against an outgoing administration as I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.
And what if it’s ok that we, the vulnerable, confidently and clearly say that this is still not enough?
Let’s take the boogieman out of that phrase. It is important for us to acknowledge all of the above and more because no matter how you cut it, these moves toward representation and protections are a sign of progress. But at times it feels like the commonly understood but unspoken assumption is that a whole lot of progress means we’ve reached a happily ever after moment and can stand in place. Really, I would argue that we are fortunate enough to have arrived at a point so many of our ancestors fought for: a point that provides us with even clearer, more far-ranging sight to determine that this, too, is not enough. And that shouldn’t be a taboo statement to make.
To say that we can’t demand more when it comes to our human rights is to assume that it is someone else’s to give. Each one of us on this soil was dropped into a larger American narrative extending backwards hundreds of years, the remnants of which we are trying to diagnose and shake loose. There will be people in this new season, in these next few years, in this next generation that will argue the vulnerable need to slow down or not demand as much or temper our passions. Those are the remnants. The person speaking those words positions themselves as a spokesperson for an imagined hand that feeds us, wielding the ability to close it if we act a certain way. In reality that hand is us: we the people.
America loves a savior figure and is already preparing to assign Biden just that in the wake of this last administration. The reality is all of the progress just mentioned and much, much more is the result of the tireless efforts of grassroots organizers: we the people. And there’s so much more work to do; so much more to advocate for. Let’s not lose sight of that moving forward. Many new movements and ideas rose up in this last decade plus that were met with strong pushback only to then slowly trickle from the ground to the campaign trail, to the debate stage, to the acceptance speech, and then the inauguration. This was the first time the phrase “white supremacy” was said on the capitol by a president, another first, and it wasn’t simply because of a white supremacist-led insurrection at that capitol weeks prior. The large bulk of the work beforehand organizing, protesting, disrupting, speaking, correcting, criticizing, and demanding created that spark and forced that first into fruition, the same as the many other firsts.
Yes, they’ll undoubtedly tell us to slow down soon and it will come across just as nonsensical as telling the spring to stay put. No, this is exactly the time to move forward.
-Temba Kamara, RYSE Communications Manager
"We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation"
-Amanda Gorman, Youth Poet Laureate