I’ll begin by sharing my response to a friend, after she sent me the article linked here, “Call It what It Is – A Coup”:

“Speaking the truth about what is happening is difficult and unpleasant. Hearing the truth is also difficult and unpleasant. But the longer we fail to recognize the current situation for what it is—a slow-rolling coup attempt—the longer it will take for us to recover.“

I feel like this is the exact refrain folks have been singing ever since the country was established.

I hope he’s right about people being unwilling to tolerate the erosion of their freedoms. That’s the main variable I just absolutely can’t know in advance that will 💯 make or break what I’m about to say:

We always needed something better. Isn’t that why you so often quote Toni Morrison about the function of racism being distraction?

Isn’t that why I got paid all of $250 over 3 years to educate federal research staff and clinical researchers and organizational leaders, one on one and in groups, getting them to improve the quality and clarity of their inclusion/exclusion criteria? Isn’t that why the exact work I did in those years was just summarily erased from federal databases?

Because they wanted to move toward Justice the slow way. White liberals wanted to move toward Justice at the pace that involved tossing me aside in 2016, as soon as they learned I don’t much care for Hillary Clinton (or her SOB husband), and immediately moved to replace me with someone who comforts them more than asks uncomfortable questions.

It’s why they keep you on the hamster wheel, fighting with the IRB instead of just delivering services to people who need it, isn’t it?

“The longer we fail to recognize the situation for what it is —”

If ever there were a phrase to reflect on today, I think you’ve pinned it down right here.

DEI was not quite succeeding – certainly not in a timely enough fashion – to make us recognize our reality for what it is and change course. White folks were still White folkin’. Cis folks were still cis folkin’. Colonization was still colonizin’.

But in what is happening here, I see one of the starkest, most beautiful opportunities for Real Change ever observed in all my life:

The federal government is indeed crumbling.

But as people, as workers, as neighbors with skill sets — we have choices.

We are not the government itself. If it burns down, we have hearts and hands with which to build what DEI only had the tools to beg and plead for — but failed to deliver.

We have literal millions of people averse to this foolishness who can take their skills and start up new NGOs. We can rebuild the structure fundamentally, with multiple organizations that cross-check one another for accuracy and integrity, cooperatively (Ujamaa!), and prevent any one person or small group from being able to hurt us like this again.

We can use this as fuel to shift the medical journals from behind a paywall to some kind of open source situation.

We can develop a Direct Democracy app and radically rewrite the job descriptions of Senators and Representatives.

We can create a Tax Portfolio system that allows people to set how much of their taxes they want to invest in each spending category, like people with 401ks get to do with their stock portfolio.

We can intercept police departments in their moments of chaos, wanting only for their paychecks, and propose solutions to get their officers trauma-informed mental health therapy.

Workers hold the power.

We can do so much. The weaker the federal government is, the fewer restrictions we have on envisioning what we can do to rebuild.

If we fail, then the coup gains the strength that we didn’t take advantage of.

But if we stand firmly rooted in knowing who we are and what is sacred – we might just get everything we’ve ever been asking for all our lives. 💞

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I don’t mean to burden her with a pep talk every time we connect. It’s just that when she speaks, I hear sunlight itself, struggling to shine behind an atmosphere of dreary clouds.

How can any of us choose to remain in a dark, cold, empty pit of despair, while sunlight exists and is gracious enough to shine on us?

If the Democrats are gonna do anything to save us from the hostile coup takeover happening right now, I’m not counting on them to do it willingly.

I’m sure as hell not counting on them to include trans people and/or Intersex people in their rescue efforts.

Everything that matters right now is up to each of us to make happen. You cannot do everything, but you can do anything.

We must protect what is sacred from fools who treat nothing as sacred.

We must restore the land to the rightful governance of Native tribes who respect holding that power.

If the Dems try to put a bandaid on this again, pointing the finger at how bad the opposition is while failing to model the humility, integrity, resolve, and interconnectedness that decolonization and humanity itself calls for… well, that’s how we landed here in the first place.

We can save ourselves. Get off social media and go have an awkward, in-person conversation with your neighbor today.

Ask questions out of genuine curiosity rather than to persuade someone to agree with you.

Care for people because their lives matter, rather than because of some weird (likely financial) power dynamic you have with them.

Read My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem.

And Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff.

Bake a loaf of bread, and go share it with someone whose way of life you know little or nothing about. An unhoused person? A refugee? A trans person? Anyone unlike yourself. You’ve got plenty of options.

Love your Black transgender neighbor as yourself. If you don’t have a Black transgender neighbor, learn about the history of red-lining, House & Ball culture, and the plentiful data about how these people who should be your neighbors have often been systematically kept from existing in your neighborhood.

I would offer more links to cite that last statement, but the federal coup removed all related data from CDC and HHS websites last week.

What are you going to rebuild with us? Will it honor the principles of Kwanzaa? Will it include Liberty and Justice for ALL?

Will it make your 11 year old self proud of who you grew up to become today?

Whatever you do, you are making a contribution to the life we get next. Not making a choice is still making a choice.

Please choose compassionately.