Why the fuck do marginalized woke brown people have to absorb the collective “we” only during moments like this? When I see the statements “What have we done?” or “We didn’t do enough” all I can think about are the times I’ve pulled all-nighters on projects that I truly believed would do good in this universe. I see organizers around me who wear out their bodies while fighting for causes that might not even immediately affect them. I see artists who have done free work even though they were already broke, because it would get the right message to the right audience.
I’ve grown up around people who have BEEN doing the work, at the expense of their health, relationships, finances and personal ambitions. We endure microaggressions at work, we mourn the regular killings of our people, and we lose sleep trying to navigate a system designed to suppress us. And now because white male hetero supremacy continues to exist, we have to blame ourselves for not doing enough? We have to sigh and say that we failed?
Fuck that. WE did everything we could in a horrible situation that we were born into and that our ancestors resisted. WE do not have to blame ourselves for the outcome of this election being a reflection of the endurance of white fear and white greed. WE deserve to celebrate ourselves and to allocate energy to self-love.
We at least get to have that.