Let's be frank.
This is a dark, uncertain, and stormy time. It feels like we're trapped on an unmoored ship, careening in the storm.
We feel helpess. We feel tired, of caring, and of trying. So many of us have worked really hard to be good people, to be kind, generous, and accepting of others. We've voted, tried to elect good representatives, donated to worthy causes, written postcards to voters in swing states, and knocked on doors.
We've protested injustice, sought out truth, and rejected disinformation. We've committed to deconstructing our own biases and the bigotries baked into our society, and we've challenged others to do the same. We've argued with bigots, bad guys and family, who are often the same people.
What has it all been for? Do all our efforts, wearing our hearts on our sleeves, make anything better? Is it worth it at all? Are things just getting worse?
Well, it depends on what we see as worse, and what we feel is worth it.
I was born in 1969, another crazy time of hatred, fear, and tumultuous change. Big issues were been fought for, suffered for, and died for, with the ongoing Vietnam War and the recent passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Schools that had been previously separated by race were being integrated. People were divided and angry. White people, especially white men, were freaking the hell out, as usual, at the thought of losing any tiny part of their “king of the world” birthright.
1969 was also the year of the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village. At that time most states could arrest you for being homesexual or trans. In that time, trans could be determined by you wearing more than three items of clothing associated with the opposite gender, (which has to be the goddamn stupidest thing I'd ever seen, until recent times witnessing Nancy Mace-style stupidity.)
It's hard to say how many Americans have always been LGBTQ+ thoughout American history, because it has mostly been too dangerous to volunteer that information. But in 2015 , marriage equality was made the law of the land, and today in 2024, 10% of the population voluntarily self-identifies as LGBTQ+. Also today, eight in ten people in the US support nondiscrimination laws to protect LGBTQ+ people, and seven in ten support marriage equality. 83 % of Americans surveyed believe trans people deserve the same rights as all other Americans. That's all Americans, even the red hat brigade.
I was born onto a world where women were fighting to have a place in society, and opportunity in their lives that was not accessed only through their relationships with men. Between 1964 and 1974 women won many groundbreaking rights. They won the right to be free from sex-discrimination in their employment (1964), they gained equal access to educational and sports opportunities through federally funded schools (1972), and won the agency to use birth control(1965) and decide whether they would carry a child (1973). Women also got the right to have a credit card in their own name, and could own a house without a male cosignor on the title(1974). It took 14 more years before they could not be denied a business loan without a male cosigner.
I remember some other random things as a kid growing up in Colorado, like lead in house paint was a okay until 1978, Homes were built with asbestos products until 1989. People didn't have to wear seatbelts by law until 1987, and God help me, you have to know which predictable segment of the population just entirely lost their shit over that. "We want more car deaths, how dare you take away our freedom to die horribly! Yargh!” Yes, apparently they were pirates.
These things are just the tiniest peek at an enormous mountain of positive changes that have happened in this country to make lives better for so many people, all just during my short 55 years here on the planet.
Now, ponder the ways lives have improved in the US in the last 200 years. The emancipation of enslaved Americans. Women can vote. There are no more kids working in factories. Social Security. The 40 hour work week. The National Parks. Clean water and air protections.
Worldwide, the Nazis were defeated. There are fewer and fewer wars. There is less famine and more access to greater varieties of food. There is accessibility of travel. Almost nobody dies of scurvy, measels, typhoid, polio, smallpox, mumps, and rubella. There are simply too many improvements to name.
All this, mind you, despite having a worldwide network of a bigoted and very intentionally oppressive male power structure who built in loopholes as a feature, so the shittiest people can do the shittiest things they want with near impunity all the time.
Yet weirdly, despite that, life has continued to get better, and better, and better for the majority of regular people on this planet. Why?
It's tempting to look at every one of the wins, which regular folks have fought for and won, as not very impressive or important, because there are still so many bad guys, so many persistant problems, terrible wars, and so many back-steps *gestures at the gross spectacle on the right*.
But if we could ask the enslaved people, or the women who died of sepsis from backalley abortions, or the 6 year olds working 12 hour days in dirty factories, or people hanging onto life in Nazi concentration camps if it was important to them that a lot if people fought for them, I'm pretty sure I know what they would say.
I get it. Bad people do keep trying, and sometimes succeeding, to take away good things from good people. Men continue to start wars and subjugate people. They work hard to scare us into submission to support their unsupportable actions. Many of us struggle with our own loss of family and friends and communities if we speak out against their actions and stand up for what's right. That's all part of being the bad guys, they subjugate us all to cruelty and make us continually fight for our rights. It's exaughsting.
Which then leads us back to our question. Is it worth it to fight these constant fights, to hurt these hurts, and to feel the anger and fear we feel when we experience crushing steps backwards?
For me, I'm going to say yes. And I will go a little further and say, not only is it worth it, it is an honor.
Taking my place in the line of good people who stand up for what's right is the only way I can be free from willingly volunteering for subjugation and selling out other people. It's the only way to not be a bad guy, or carry the water for bad guys.
It's also the only way I can really feel my true spirit and my wholeness, without which I feel helpless, adrift and untethered in the storm.
The way to freedom, and saftey, and happiness for me, is by being one of the people who stand up for the freedom, saftey and happiness of us all.
This Thanksgiving, I'm going to spend time in gratitude for what I can control.
I'm grateful I know the difference between right and wrong.
I'm grateful I'm mostly brave and not imprisoned by fear, even though I feel afraid sometimes.
I'm grateful to understand that I came here to be a help this world, not be a willing victim to it, or profiteer from the sale of my neighbors.
It a gift to have the opportunity to continue the work of so many others who worked to make the world a better, safer, more loving, more supportive place. And that's really the bigger truth of what's happening in the world, despite how it currently seems.
History shows us this is so.
And storms, no matter how awful and tumuluous, always end, and the sun always returns.
Hang on tight, and help others with the best you have inside of you. We'll steer this ship ashore together. I promise.
I ❤️ you,
Rochelle
https://money.usnews.com/credit-cards/articles/women-and-credit-a-look-at-the-history
https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/house-bill/5050
https://www.prri.org/research/findings-from-the-2022-american-values-atlas/
https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2017-01-20/timeline-the-womens-rights-movement-in-the-us