How we win

Lessons from Black women, Evangelical Christians, & the rainforest

“Sometimes I Told You So Just Ain’t Enough,” by Navi’ Robins

When the Trump admin began its nonstop blitzkrieg to overwhelm and stun, I thought of Black people, no strangers to oppression.

While white progressive leaders resisted the current administration like vapid milquetoasts, I watched as Black women like Representatives Jasmine Crockett and Ayanna Pressley brought the heat.

This is because Black women have been “fighting for centuries, seething for centuries, bleeding for centuries,” writes Andrielle the Oracle.

Harriet Tubman used coded songs and rhythms to communicate messages surreptitiously. Kendrick Lamar delivered a subversive, revolutionary performance at the Super Bowl that was not intended for everyone.

Also, I take back what I said about the Super Bowl.

That anti-DEI memo? They yeeted it straight into the compost where all bad ideas grow seeds of resistance.

Maybe the NFL visited Southeast Alaska and saw how the most diverse forests are the strongest. Maybe they know that DEI initiatives are just good business.

I’ve been thinking about how to change starts locally, from the ground up, with community.

In this way, the right is crushing it, and the left is, as my son calls it, “selling.”

How so?

• Communities of disenfranchised, lonely men (i.e. “incels”) are fomenting in the dark corners of the interwebs.

• Right-leaning Christians commune weekly at church.

Gallup surveys show that 3/4 of white Americans who attend religious services weekly or more identify as Republican, whereas Democrats make up just one in five weekly church-goers.

Sure, the conversation starts with Jesus or Revelations or whatever, but over post-service brunch, political whispers arise. The pastors talk about politics, which is why some of my conservative family love going to those churches.

Evangelical Christians created the Tea Party, a grassroots organization formed in living rooms and post-church brunches. Then, the Tea Party paved the way for Donald Trump.

Progressives could take a page from the Tea Party playbook and start their own “church” — some form of community that transcends politics and offers fellowship.

“This is where White leftists seem to keep running into a wall,” @TheMadHistorian writes on Threads. “Sorry, but politics CANNOT be the basis of community.”

There must be spirit. I’m thinking of my mom’s faith groups, book groups, volunteer groups. My dance troupe, the Off the Hook Honeys, my writing group, my family, this newsletter.

Friends have reached out in the last few weeks after forming subversive, political support groups. Communities are being created on encrypted servers and in private living rooms.

As my Black Jamaican friends taught me, “real power comes from the ground up.”The revolution may be televised, but often, it’s not.

One of the symbols from Kendrick Lamar’s performance that others haven’t mentioned was at the beginning when hundreds of Black men emerged from the small 1987 Buick GNX on stage.

We are more numbered than we think. This gives me hope, as does the following:

Newly-formed support groups. Protest art. Protests across the country devoid of counter-protesters. Everything Steve Brodner writes about here.

It gives me hope when my son, who hears opposing political viewpoints from his parents, still decides to do his autobiographical report on Jose Vargas, “America’s most famous undocumented immigrant.”

Also, his joke:

“Mom, you just want me to practice trumpet because you just love to see trump get played.”

If the NFL can understand the assignment, then so can all of us. The way I see it, a broken arm grows back stronger. (Don’t tell the NFL that, though.)

Seeds don’t germinate in the light. Now is the time to go deep.

All endings are portals to new stories.

Where are you putting your grief, your anger these days? I’d love to hear from you.

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Xo,

Summer

Recommended reading:

"All My Life I had to Fight"

Pennies from Felons