Friends,

I am so inspired by the over 5 million people who turned out to say No Kings! on June 14th. I have been tumbling around between anger and deep grief. 

Reminding myself that the hostility of the MAGA movement is steeped in fear, I know that the racist ideology that fuels their violence is one that all of our ancestors have been marinating in for generations. 

I want to remind you and myself that this democracy has been an experiment; we are Europe's angry, wealthy teenage child at the moment: well-resourced, bored, unfocused, not sure what we want to do when we graduate from high school. I am quite sure that the United States has not functioned well ever. Many of us were able to take cover in our whiteness and our financial safety. Every time I see a story of abundant generosity on social media - the employees who buy the janitor a car, the sports mega star who sends 40 kids to college, etc. I get angry. This is the propaganda of individuals couched in generosity and solidarity. However, it’s dangerous to justify a political economy with kind gestures. With philanthropy that means well. The wealth gap has not changed, in fact, it’s become larger in my lifetime. But we rejoice in the stories of individual acts of giving big because they reflect back to us kindness, integrity, and heartfelt compassion. There’s nothing wrong with the individual acts themselves. I would do the same. But there’s danger in this spectacle, in the very power of its seduction. 

The distraction is immeasurable and it works on us. We become passive and uninterested in shifting the material reality of our communities and our country. While we gaze admiringly at the widow who donates her inheritance to a university for free medical student education, we don’t hold our representatives accountable for the increases in public higher education or the lack of a living wage. The minimum wage in NC $3.80 to $7.25 in my lifetime. While all our expenses have risen substantially, our incomes have not. How can anyone live rationally on $7.25 an hour? We are woefully uneducated about economies and history. We prefer to read the feel-good story about a well-meaning person helping out a neighbor rather than reckon with our unhinged capitalism. The means of holding our democracy accountable have been slipping through our fingers for decades. The current political moment is the direct result of deregulation and other conservative economic policies, a constant divide and conquer social agenda, driven by christian nationalism and racism.  

When we speak of a “systemic analysis,” this is what we mean. Please stop focusing on the happy charity story and start disrupting the larger institutional policies that maintain wealth for the few at the expense of the many.

So let’s step back and imagine the experiment known as the United States of America failed. 

(Many of us may not have to imagine; we feel the failure in our bones, in the violence of our communities, the brambles of our public schools, a planet heated to the boiling point, and all the insurmountable ways that big money in politics has poisoned the well.)

There is both power and honesty in letting the dream of a functioning democracy become hazy, tricky, out of focus. Our gaze might wander to something else in the landscape. What comes into focus when we let the promise of the USA fade into the background? 

When I focus my gaze elsewhere during this free fall, I find these items pop into the foreground with such poetry! Here’s my list:

The quiet morning. Whether I walk or sit sipping coffee, a quiet morning is a luxury. The bird song, the calm. The way the dappled sunlight filters through the dogwoods. I luxuriate in the color and the calm invitation to feel a part of the planet, a creature here for a mere moment in time. 

Loving kindness practiced with my neighbors and friends, people who help me, and people who need my help. I have this ability to detach and step away from urgency, to see the broken system and how it presses down on all of us. I find my breath. I take a beat. 

Creativity. Building an altar in my new home, writing my memoir, a pot garden for my patio, a new drawing to gift to an old friend. I build time to create. 

Caring for my body. Perhaps the biggest opportunity in my current life, this invitation comes to me as I set a course for croning well, for entering the days of “sitting still.” I want to enjoy my body as I age, I want to respect my feet, which have carried me so many hundreds of thousands of miles. And my blood cells. How I want to do good by my blood cells. 

My invitation is to find your list. As we free fall in these mysterious days, as we are shocked into reality day in and day out, what happens when you let the dream of democracy go blurry? What inspiration can you find in the foreground?

Another Elegy

["This is what our dying looks like"]

By Jericho Brown

This is what our dying looks like.

You believe in the sun. I believe

I can't love you. Always be closing,

Said our favorite professor before

He let the gun go off in his mouth.

I turned 29 the way any man turns

In his sleep, unaware of the earth

Moving beneath him, its plates in

Their places, a dated disagreement.

Let's fight it out, baby. You have

Only so long left—a man turning

In his sleep—so I take a picture.

I won't look at it, of course. It's

His bad side, his Mr. Hyde, the hole

In a husband's head, the O

Of his wife's mouth. Every night,

I take a pill. Miss one, and I'm gone.

Miss two, and we're through. Hotels

Bore me, unless I get a mountain view,

A room in which my cell won't work,

And there's nothing to do but see

The sun go down into the ground

That cradles us as any coffin can.

Provocations and Nourishment

5 Laws that Make Life Easier by Yung Pueblo

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What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?’: Descendants Read Frederick Douglass' Speech  | NPR

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Toolkit: Peace-Building Circles | Learning for Justice

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The Love & Justice Quarterly Subscription Box

Each season, Love & Justice subscribers will get a box of BIPOC hand-crafted whimsy, and an invitation to connect to discuss the enclosed book. 

Upcoming Opportunities

Training for Change Summer Offerings! 

Check it out - online and in person - the good work is all around us.

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Do you know anyone in Northern California?

This one-day in-person event will be full of love and justice!

4 Mindsets for Dismantling Racism - Sonoma, CA 

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New Ancestors Coaching Group - join me in October for a transformational antiracism coaching experience.

We will gather 6 times as a group to uncover how we get unstuck, bring our radical imagination to our social justice work, and be the ancestors we know our children and grandchildren need.

More information and cure graphics here.

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The Wisdom of the Hive with Michelle Cassandra Johnson 

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Toward Justice,

Evangeline

Please forward this blog to any of your friends working to build more just communities and organizations.