• Lucinda J. Garthwaite, ILI Director

One of my younger nephews occasionally posts a picture or a headline on his Instagram story, something he’s concerned about: A captured elephant. Children at the border. This week, the name of another young Black man killed by police at a traffic stop.

I text him just so he knows I see his concern. He writes back, “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just so insanely crazy that this keeps happening.” We wonder together about what to do. He texts, “I don’t know...”

I put down my phone. I don’t know what to say.

I often don’t know what to say. I get silenced by grief, overwhelmed by the complexity of what’s to be done, stunned by fear for my own dear ones with black and brown skin.

This week, pummeling news of police violence directed at Black men, including another young man dead. That, after news of another older Asian woman slammed to the sidewalk from behind, her assault ignored by passers-by. Another transgender woman of color -- the thirteenth, at least, this year -- murdered. I stumbled through two days in grief that often slid into despair. I wrote to some friends of color, told them I was heartsick and couldn’t imagine how they were feeling, that I was sending my love, that if they needed to sit down to please know I would stay standing.

Honestly though, I was finding it difficult to stand. One friend, a woman of considerable faith that’s kept her strong for 70 years, wrote back and told me she just wanted to stay in bed. I didn’t tell her that I wanted to also.

The work of changing a system designed for oppression[i] is relentless; the impact of the system is not only sense-less, it’s sense-robbing. A week or two of no new violence offers the barest glimpse of hope, a minute to focus on other things, like spring flowers, maybe, or a delicious meal. Respites are short-lived though. Sonya Renee Taylor, founder of The Body is Not an Apology movement, posted this week, “Letting your guard down and being happy, only to see [another] Black death, is heartbreaking. It hurts so much that sometimes I can’t feel anything at all.”

After I’d set down my phone during that exchange with my nephew, I paced the room with my hand on my chest; my heart actually did hurt. Finally, I picked my phone back up and wrote, “I love you so much. I’m grateful you care about these things. We’ll just keep working on it.” He sent a heart emoji back.

There’s nothing new there, but it’s worth repeating: The long arc of justice requires love. It requires appreciating each other, and saying that. It requires persistence.

There is no shortage of writing and resources about love as a force for social change. Philosopher, author and activist Cornel West has famously and often said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” Activist, writer and teacher bell hooks writes, “The practice of love is the most powerful antidote to the politics of domination.” There’s even an online course, for free from Stanford University, called Love as a Force for Social Justice.*

It’s also just saying out loud, I love you, especially to those whose very lives are most at risk. It’s appreciating each other for what we can do, for who we are to one another, for the extent to which we care. Writer adrienne maree brown insists, “We have the capacity to hold each other, serve each other, heal each other, create for and with each other, forgive each other, and liberate ourselves and each other.”

Genuine expressions of love and appreciation are not trivial in the work of change; they’re necessary.

So is persistence. I fumbled for two days this week in a fog, barely able to keep my commitment, as a white, cisgender woman, to persist as my friends and colleagues of color, and my trans and nonbinary friends, tucked in, curled up, couldn’t, in some cases, move. My persistence was not robust. I was going through the motions.

But I had to respond to that 13-year-old boy, whom I love beyond measure. What came to me to say to him is also what brought me to my senses and back to work: I Love you. I see you. We will keep working.

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*All of the resources and writers referenced in this piece are linked in the resources section at the end of this newsletter.


Note: As this post goes online, many have heard about or seen the devastating video of another 13-year-old boy, hands up in an alley, killed by police. I could not let that go by without noting it here. Vaya con Dios, Adam Toledo. I love you. I see you. I will keep working. ljg

[i] For a quick review of the history of policing in the US, consider this NPR interview