I know a lot of us are feeling hopeless, and/or helpless. Many of us look at the activism work we did over the years, and see where things are now and think, "Did anything I did make a difference?" I want to assure you that, yes, it did. Yes we've gone backwards in many respects as homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, transphobia, etc rear their ugly heads like a fecking hydra. Yes, things are bad, there's no sugar coating that. AND, the work you did DID make a difference. Whether that work was sit-ins at the lunch counters in the 60's, volunteering with AIDS patients in the 80s, starting as GSA at your school in the 90s (as I did), or just being a kind human to someone who needed to know that someone out their was "safe." All of these things made a difference, and the world would be a much more dangerous place for marginalized people if the work that was done hadn't been done.
Yes, my right to be legally married is now in question, but I never thought I would see gay marriage become legalized in this country, and yet for 10 years my marriage has been recognized. I KNOW what is possible, and if we lose it we will fight for it again because we know what is possible. Even though the GSA I started in 95 collapsed after I left DSU I know I laid a foundation, I know I planted seeds, I know that the work I did made it just a little bit easier for the kids who came after me. I know that me being out has helped others to come out to their families and friends, and that me being out has helped parents to be more accepting of their own queer kids.
Sometimes I think it's easy to forget how impactful the "little" things can be. Saving a life isn't always jumping in front of a bullet, most often it is those little moments- a smile, a kind word, your undivided attention. Many people have saved my life over the years. Mrs. Fuller when she took me aside and told me, "I don't think anyone has ever told you how bright you are." That one conversation turned my hatred of school into a love of learning, and learning is what got me the fuck out of ND. Mrs. Anderson who took seriously something I'd written in my creative writing journal, and told me that she couldn't bear losing another student. My friend Debi who was just THERE during one of the worst periods of my life-I wasn't able to really talk about it/process it with her, but having her solid presence there grounded me as I was tossed about in my sea of chaos. It is not an exaggeration to say each of these people saved a life, my life.
Thinking about the more global sense of "making a difference", I think back to something Jane Goodall said during the pandemic: (paraphrasing) it's easy to get overwhelmed and feel helpless and hopeless with all of the bad going on in the world, and we as individuals can't fix those big things, but what we can do is look to our own microcosms, our own communities and find ways to get involved and make a difference for the people (even one person) around us. And in doing so, we do change the world for the better.
As SNAP cuts loomed on the horizon I saw multiple restaurants in my community posting that they would feed kids, I saw people on social media asking where best to donate food, I saw community organizing. If people didn't have money to spare, they compiled lists of places to go for help.
We can all make a difference. We can all change the world. Little acts every day- dropping a quarter in an expired meter, letting a friend know how much they mean to you, buying something off of a giving tree, volunteering at Meals on Wheels, speaking up when you hear bigotry, holding the door for someone whose hands are full, donating your old coats to Transgender Resource Center. You can make a difference, and you ARE important.
No comments:
Post a Comment