It’s time to organize (part II: inspirations)

Inhale (deep breath, an inspiration). When I posted my first blog, I featured a photo of myself standing at the apartheid wall that separates the West Bank from settlements in occupied Palestine. I didn’t expect that what this visual represents would take such a center stage for so many so soon. Since starting to draft this third blog, the collective conscience of the world has been fracturing. These are the only words I can use to describe watching the horror of escalated genocide and ethnic cleansing unfold on our phones daily while we continue to move between the day to day tasks of law school and life. Despite the anguish, rage, grief, our student body has been pushing onward, with as much care as we can muster. Unless folks have remained willfully uninformed, I haven’t seen an area of the law school that hasn’t been affected by the ongoing genocide in Gaza that is in large part funded and supported by the US.  

 

In the past month, I have been constantly reminded that our legacies matter so far beyond individual “successes” but more meaningfully toward what future we are creating. We get to (and must) choose the paths forward. This is why the American Bar Association messages standing against repression matter, the National Lawyers Guild unequivocal support for liberation and critical engagement matter, why I’m so proud of my own LSA (law student government) for the statement we released on October 24 after intentional time hearing from students, having multiple meetings and votes in order to support our community and call for a ceasefire. I’ve been so inspired by my mentors, my friends, my community, students, laborers, journalists, people of conscience. Right now, especially, it feels like we’re looking for inspiration. Inspiration to do the “right” thing, to do the hard thing, to do anything.

 

In my previous blog post, I briefly mentioned a few inspirational folks in my journey who I never met: Assata Shakur, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr. I felt inspired by a former classmate’s post about how Tyler the Creator influenced her college journey, and I planned this follow-up post to continue to explore the inspirational folks that we look to as we organize as law students (or whomever we may be) for better futures for all. What I had planned to share when first writing this post was about the legacies we engage when we look to our inspirational leaders. What I have instead is these musings and by way of my original topic, I’ll highlight an elder of conscience who I continue to look to in times of political chaos. While celebrity culture is not something I endorse, we see that folks who have become idols in popular culture can certainly use their platforms in meaningful ways (shout out to Kehlani, to Macklemore (?!?!), to Kid Cudi, Jamila Woods, and so many more folks who have decidedly chosen to speak out against ongoing atrocities in the past month in such ways as Artists Against Apartheid). What I wanted to talk about was living into the legacy of people like the namesake of our law school. What I am saying is that we still have the opportunity to do so.

 

The elder of conscience I wanted to highlight who influenced my journey is Angela Davis. The night this photo was taken at Busboys & Poets in Washington, DC, I was in the throws of wanting to drop out of school to become a “full-time activist.” I was advised by beloveds that this was not an “actual career plan,” and encouraged rather that sometimes we should stick to the status quo. Having the honor to enjoy a pastry (my favorite thing) in conversation with Angela Davis, I asked her thoughts on whether I should stay in school. When I shared that I had only one semester left until graduation, she said, unequivocally yes, finish out if it is right for me. So I stayed, and I graduated, and I hurt and I learned and I grew, and here I am, cultivating a path on which I deliberately include organizing, activism, art, joy, my passions and people I care deeply about. This is in small part because of the conversation I had, but in larger part because of the ongoing learning from mentors and community and from leaders like Dr. Davis. The revolutionary author of Freedom is a Constant Struggle (relevant for our current times) as well as a number of other essays and books has consistently shown the true nature of not only a revolutionary, but also an activist-academic. I recently hung a timeline of Dr. Davis’s life to date on the wall in my office that I got as a souvenir from an exhibit at the OMCA. I wanted a reminder that the time we spend matters. 

 

I’ve been privileged to continue to witness and learn from activist-academics in practice (starting from my own mother) through mentors I have gained while in graduate school. What I am currently considering is that facing down the worst parts of what our humanity is capable of is not disconnected from what we puzzle over in the classrooms… atrocities we read about in textbooks are not just thought experiments, there are human lives connected to each loss, each law, each choice. The devastation in the world weighs heavily on my heart and mind, but/and I’m privileged and grateful to be where I am right now, working toward the legacy that stops these kinds of atrocities in their tracks before they can be carried out against anyone else. 

We can choose who we take inspiration from. We can become inspirational. More on this next time. As I continue to think through this moment and what it means for all of us, I’ll end with an excerpt from the poem that starts Assata Shakur’s biography, as an exhale (breathe out):

 

Affirmation

“I have been locked by the lawless. 

Handcuffed by the haters.

Gagged by the greedy.

And, if i know any thing at all,

it’s that a wall is just a wall

and nothing more at all.

It can be broken down.

 

I believe in living. 

I believe in birth.

I believe in the seat of love 

and the fire of truth.

 

And i believe that a lost ship, 

steered by tired, seasick sailors, 

can still be guided home

to port.”