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Hi, I'm Zonva Lines and this is the Liberating Motherhood podcast.

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This episode is going to be a little bit different.

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You might have noticed that I did not open with the vignette.

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I also don't have a guest to introduce because I am doing this episode on my own.

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And the reason that I'm doing that, well, there's a couple of reasons.

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But the

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The main reason is that I did an AMA last week and I was inundated with questions

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about how you sustain hope,

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how you avoid despair,

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how you move forward in a climate that feels so very,

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very dark.

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And it occurred to me that I ask a lot of other people about these issues and I

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write a lot about these issues.

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but that I have not ever given myself the chance to speak directly with my voice

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instead of my words to you,

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my readers,

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about how I feel about the current political climate.

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So I'm sort of conceiving this as like the after-school special of Liberating

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Motherhood,

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where I want to bring you,

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my listeners,

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in and talk to you about what's happening in the world and

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And hopefully offer you something of value that makes you feel a little bit less

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terrified and a little bit less terrorized.

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I'm doing this episode sort of informally.

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I don't really plan to edit it.

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Usually I edit out my worst mistakes and my trains of thought and all of that,

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barking dogs,

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etc.,

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And usually I also enter with extensive notes because I'm interviewing somebody else.

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But this one's going to just be sort of off of the cuff because I feel like that's

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the approach that gives the most fidelity to what I'm going for,

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which is that I'm bringing you friends in and hoping to help you.

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There's this trope online where people will say,

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I'm going to hold your hand while I say this,

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and then they'll tell you something about the current political climate.

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And the first time I saw that, I thought, oh, that's really lovely.

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I understand the message that they're conveying.

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And now I'm tired of seeing it.

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But the vibe of this episode is going to sort of be that.

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So,

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you know,

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if you were here with me in my office,

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I would be holding your hand and I would be hugging you and I would be assuring you

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that we're all in this together.

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But you're not here.

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So me saying that feels a little cheesy.

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But please know that if you're in the fight for justice, like I'm in it with you and

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care about you and care about building solidarity with as many people as I can.

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So that is why I'm doing this episode.

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So a little bit of framing is that a lot of you are really, really scared right now.

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And I understand why fear is a reaction that makes sense.

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It's not that you're crazy.

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It's not that you're overreacting.

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It's that the

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And this but is important.

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I want to add that the world has always been a really scary place.

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And I'm sure you've heard that before.

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And you often hear it in sort of a guilting and shaming way of like,

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well,

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if you're only just scared now,

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that means you're really privileged.

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And that's true,

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but I think it's not useful for helping people figure out how to deal with their

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fear.

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So I just want to add the framing that

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things have been dark now for a long time.

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Uh,

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no matter how you define that darkness,

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whether you define it as mass incarceration or racism or misogyny,

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none of those things were invented by Donald Trump.

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And none of those things will go away when he is gone.

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Um, he will be gone eventually one way or another.

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And we must heed the lessons that we have learned during this time to keep pushing

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forward for more progress.

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Uh,

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we can only get free if we keep pushing on.

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And I feel that one of the mistakes that many activists have made has been to,

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when things seem a little bit better,

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to assume,

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okay,

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like the world is healing now and it's all going to be okay.

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So again,

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the world has always been a dark and scary place,

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but here's something else the world has always been.

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The world has always,

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always been a place where people have come together no matter how scary things were

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and built community

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and built joy and pushed back even when they were surrounded by nothing but despair.

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I have a number of friends whose parents or grandparents are Holocaust survivors

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and I think about them a lot because I think about the immense despair their

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relatives must have faced and

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the very real horror that their relatives faced when they watched loved ones die.

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You know, the horror wasn't theoretical.

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The fear wasn't an overreaction.

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It was really happening all around them.

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And I think it probably did feel like the end of the world.

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And for a lot of people, it was the end of the world.

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But something else happened, which was that the world did continue on.

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And people changed things.

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And eventually it ended because people ended it.

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Because, not of war, but because of people and activism.

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And as a result of that,

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you know,

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my friends whose relatives are Holocaust survivors get to be here with me now.

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There is always,

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as long as there is humanity and a planet,

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there is always a tomorrow and there is always a future.

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Even when tomorrow is dark and even when the future seems bleak,

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we can always change things as long as we're here.

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So I want you,

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I want you,

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my listeners to hold that in your minds and hearts that we can always change

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things.

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And I'm gonna talk a little bit about what I think activism needs to be in this

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moment and what I think activists need to do.

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The thing I wanna start with saying again

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is the incredible importance of hope.

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Hope is not foolish.

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Hope is not naive.

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Hope is an absolute necessity for us to keep going.

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Because when we feel despair, we stop.

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And that is what fascism thrives on.

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Authoritarianism thrives on demoralization.

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They want you to feel afraid.

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This week when I recorded this,

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I think this will be released a week after I recorded it.

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The journalist Don Lemon was arrested.

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And this was interesting to me for a number of reasons.

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One of them was that I always perceived Don Lemon as a moderate and maybe a little

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right-leaning because until the Trump administration,

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he was often pushing back on leftists.

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And so the fact that he,

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someone who is decidedly not a radical,

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was arrested can feel particularly frightening.

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And it's also a grave injustice to him personally and to the people who love him.

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And I don't want to lose sight of that,

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that this is like a real human being who this has happened to.

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But the real purpose of arresting Don Lemon was not really to arrest Don Lemon

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because Don Lemon is not the biggest threat to the administration or to racism or

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to sexism or to xenophobia or to any of the values that this administration

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upholds.

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Don Lemon was arrested as a symbol to scare people.

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And it has already worked.

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I see in so many groups, you know, they're arresting journalists now.

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It's over.

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It's over.

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It's over.

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And it's not over because they're not arresting all journalists.

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They can't kill us all.

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They can't arrest us all.

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And while I never want to lose sight again of the tragedy unfolding, um,

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The primary purpose of the tragedy right now is to scare you so that you don't use your voice.

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It's to convince you that you should just put your head down and get in line.

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And ideally, they want you to try to convince other people to be scared too.

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To pick fights with people online.

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To tell them that it is hopeless.

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To tell them that donating money or volunteering or

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protesting or calling your representatives,

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those things are all stupid and naive and they're not going to change anything.

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So if you have fallen into that despair trap because of your completely

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understandable fear,

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I really want you to pull yourself out of that trap and stop trying to pull other

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people in at the very least.

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Despair is never ever a tool of activism.

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Please remember that.

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The other thing that I want you to remember is that

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You are,

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and I'm going to talk about this in more detail in a couple of weeks when I have

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Loretta Ross on the podcast.

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So I did not come up with this idea.

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This is something Loretta Ross talks about,

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and she draws on the work of people like Adrienne Marie Brown when talking about

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it.

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And what she says on the podcast,

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and what I agree with and have been trying to say,

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is that we are but one link in a chain.

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One part of a long history that extends backwards to our ancestors and forward to

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our great-great-great-great-grandchildren and hopefully to a more just world.

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Activism is not something you do one time in a very frenzied weekend.

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It's something that you do over the course of a lifetime.

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It is a marathon, not a sprint.

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And we are not, as individuals, going to be heroes who fix everything.

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And we have to get away from this mindset that, well, I'm here now, so it's going to get fixed.

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You are here as a link in the chain to freedom, and that's it.

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And as Loretta will say on the podcast that I'm releasing in a couple of weeks,

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your job is to just not drop your link.

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You have to do the next best thing that is in front of you rather than allow

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despair to stop you.

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I like to think about,

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particularly since I write about women's issues,

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I like to reflect on the horrors that my foremothers survived for black women who

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was being enslaved,

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surviving the Jim Crow self,

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surviving lynchings,

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surviving all kinds of sexualized racist violence.

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for more affluent women in the United States.

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It was coverture.

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It was legalized rape.

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It was legalized violence.

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It was not being able to have a bank account or a home that you owned until the 1970s.

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It was having no legal right to your children if you divorced until very recently.

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And these women survived and pressed on and they lobbied for the very changes that

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we enjoy today.

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The right to have a bank account, the right to have a mortgage,

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All of these things.

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And so if they could survive this, then I could survive what I'm surviving.

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And I can do my part to ensure that the next generation has it a little bit better.

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Despair is a betrayal of your foremothers and your ancestors.

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It is a betrayal of your children and your grandchildren.

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Now,

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if you are in a dark moment,

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hearing me say that about despair may actually make you feel more despair.

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So I don't want you to feel that way.

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What I want you to know is that there's the emotion of despair and there is the

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behavior of despair.

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It is normal to feel terrified, to feel depressed, to worry if it all matters.

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And when you start to feel that,

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that is your body's way of telling you that you need to step back and take a break.

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Fascism really tries to create a sense of urgency and to try to make us think that

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we must focus on this one very important thing right now and abandon everything

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else.

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And when we do that, we burn ourselves out.

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This, again, it's not a sprint.

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You know,

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not showing up for the protest this weekend or next weekend is not a betrayal if

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you need to do that to keep yourself sane.

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What is a betrayal is not doing the self-care that is necessary so that you can be

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in the game for the long haul.

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The urgency is your enemy.

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Pleasure, rest, self-care are not selfish.

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They are vital.

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You have to step back.

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You have to, whatever it means, you have to go on the media diet.

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You have to spend time with friends.

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You have to find ways to enjoy your life so that you can build the energy to

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sustain moving forward in your activism.

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Another thing that I would like for you to consider is that social media has done

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wonderful things in many ways for amplifying voices.

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I am in many ways here because of social media.

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But social media also allows people to amplify their voices,

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even if they don't have any real skills or credibility.

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And there are a lot of people right now talking with great authority about what

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this moment means and what's happening and what we need to do.

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And often the only thing that gives them authority is their own assertion that

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they're entitled to it.

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They don't actually know what they're talking about.

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So I would urge listeners to listen to the people who have been in this fight for a long time.

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People who have seen...

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Backlash bubble up and be suppressed.

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People who have survived dark moments,

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people who worked on anti-apartheid legislation,

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people who survived the Jim Crow South,

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because these are the people who know how we survive,

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how we thrive,

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and how we build better.

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These are the people to trust.

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And these people,

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while they are all sounding alarm bells that we must act,

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that we must care,

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that this is scary,

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all of that,

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They are all also telling us that we must not despair and we must not give up.

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The people with the greatest authority and the greatest experience are all in

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lockstep that we have to keep fighting because things only change when we change

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them.

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So the next time you see some social media posts trying to tell you that, you know,

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We are all gonna end up in concentration camps,

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that the world is going to end forever and that everything is hopeless forever.

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I want you to remember that the people who are actually doing the work are not

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telling you that because they want you to come join them in the work,

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not hide under your desk in your office and keep consuming social media and keep

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consuming despair.

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I hope that you will, when you do feel despair,

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You'll heed the message to take a break and to step back.

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And you will stop at the emotion of despair and not move on to the action of despair.

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And the action of despair is the action of not doing anything,

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of consuming more things that make you hopeless and of trying to make other people

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hopeless.

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I just beg of you that you do that.

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You know, while we're talking about hope, I also want to talk about the tyranny of blind hope.

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And

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Now that I've said that, I realize that that's unfortunate phrasing.

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We use blind to mean like unthinking and it's really ableist.

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So I apologize for using that phrase and like I'm not going to edit it out because

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again,

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I want to draw people's attention to we can make mistakes and correct them rather

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than like we can never make mistakes and a mistake is unforgivable.

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That's a side tangent.

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So back to the tyranny of what I'll call unthinking naive hope.

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And what that is,

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is this idea of destiny, that things just change.

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Women eventually got the right to vote, and so that means this thing will eventually happen.

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Slavery eventually ended, and so that means this thing will happen.

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Things don't happen randomly because goodness is predestined.

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Things change because we change them.

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And I know that I keep saying that,

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but it's just so important for us to realize that all of us play a role in these

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movements

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And we must all do the next best thing to make things change.

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We must all know that the change is not going to come immediately.

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You showing up at that protest is not going to make the people in power say,

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oh,

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well,

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she's finally shown up to the movement,

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so I guess we have to change everything.

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It's about all of us keeping going.

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And the way that all of us keep going is through something that is so challenging

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for many of us,

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which is building community and building solidarity across difference.

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We do not have to accept racists.

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We do not have to accept abuse from our fellow activists.

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But we do have to try to build solidarity wherever we can with people we may not

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like or disagree with,

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with people who are late to the party,

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with people who once participated in the wrong party,

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with people who have been wrong because we need numbers and we need all of us and

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we need you,

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you who is listening to this.

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Everyone is vital.

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It's never too late to join.

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You can start today.

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So yeah, I mean, it's scary.

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And I just,

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I hate the expression holding space because it's,

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it's just lost all meaning with like the weird weaponized therapy speak that has

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become so a part of our world.

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But if I didn't hate it, I would say, you know, I want to hold space for your despair.

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But I also want to provide a site of hope where you can cultivate hope

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And I want to give you some ideas about some things that can help you cultivate hope.

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I think really reflecting on the truth of our circumstances is so important because

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when we really reflect on what the world has looked like for a long time,

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the thing that becomes clear is that the United States has always been a fascist

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country for a large number of the people who live here.

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for indigenous people, for black Americans, for poor people, for disabled people.

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There is a long history of killing people,

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of imprisoning people,

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and of torturing people for who they are and completely robbing people of access to

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the criminal justice system.

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I urge you to go visit a prison and see how many people are wrongly or unfairly

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incarcerated and how they are treated there.

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This is not new.

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And it's very upsetting, and it's easy to get demoralized thinking about it.

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But when we recognize that this is not new,

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then we can draw on the lessons of people who have fought it before.

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And I know I already said that, but I'm just saying it again.

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Because the other thing that happens when we realize that this is not new...

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is that we are able to consider that we have already come out of many dark moments.

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Slavery no longer exists in this country.

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Um, so many things that were once commonplace are now at least questioned and often banned.

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The very fact that you are hearing my voice is a sign of change because we are now

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talking about the ways that we exploit women.

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We are now giving women the opportunity to talk about that.

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Um,

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A hundred years ago,

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even with this technology,

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it would not have been possible for me to safely reach you.

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I could have been put in a mental institution or sterilized against my will or

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beaten by my husband,

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which would have been legal or had my children taken from me.

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Things are objectively better for me now than they were for my ancestors.

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And so there's hope in reflecting on that and reflecting on all the sacrifices our

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foremothers made,

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on all the fears they faced,

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to give us this greatly imperfect and terrifying, but objectively a much better world.

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So I hope you'll consider that.

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In terms of what we need to be doing right now,

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the single most important thing for you to do is to get connected to your local

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community.

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The stuff that is happening in your local community is what is going to affect your

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life the most.

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And that is why it's so hard to make sweeping statements about what it is like as a

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person in the United States right now.

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Because what it is like for an immigrant in Minneapolis right now is very,

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very different from what it is like for me right now.

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And that's related to the cultural, political, and community context of your local area.

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So rather than obsessing over what's happening at the federal level or what's

(00:21:49):
happening somewhere else,

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I want you to learn about what's happening where you live.

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What is the school board up to?

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What is the sheriff's department up to?

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Because the sheriff's department is making determinations about how police behave,

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usually depending on the structure of your local police department.

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Sometimes it's somebody else.

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And also how jails are run.

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What is your county or city commission doing?

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What's being offered at your local library?

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What are your local representatives doing?

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These people tend to be much more accessible to you.

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You know,

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you can go to your state representative's office and you'll be one of just a few

(00:22:28):
doing that.

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And so they have a real incentive to listen to you.

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There are often measures passed at the local level that can really change lives

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that would never be passed at the federal level.

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As an example, right now in my community, there is a very serious

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measure being considered by our county commission that would greatly limit ICE

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access to our neighbors.

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And that would really make a difference, not for everyone everywhere, but for people here.

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Similarly,

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our local jail is in absolute crisis because of the incompetent leadership of the

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sheriff running it,

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who was preceded by numerous incompetent leaders.

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And as a result, people have died.

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And protesters who go to jail are in danger of dying.

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So that's something that I can hold those representatives to account in a way that

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I cannot hold Donald Trump to account.

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Local elections really matter.

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Most people don't vote in them, and when they do, they don't understand who they're voting for.

(00:23:26):
A lot of judges are elected.

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Judges determine things ranging from family court outcomes to sentences to how we

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handle protests,

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just everything that you can imagine.

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So I would really encourage you to connect to

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local political groups, and show up.

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Like pick one thing you want to observe.

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Maybe you become the person who goes to every school board meeting.

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Maybe you become the person who puts pressure on your local sheriff.

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Just pick one thing and do it.

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Because when we pick one thing and do it well,

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we can be a lot more effective than if we try to do something about everything.

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And this is something I've really had to learn as someone who has been an activist

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for a long time is

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It's really easy to see, well, this is the travesty going on right now.

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And so I need to put all of my energy into that.

(00:24:13):
But then there's going to be another travesty.

(00:24:14):
And so you never accumulate expertise.

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And this is kind of part of the pattern of fascism is that there is the despair of

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the moment,

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the crisis of the moment that distracts you.

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So what you'll see in my work is that I mostly still focus on misogyny.

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Because misogyny continues to exist and continues to kill and torture and harm

(00:24:38):
people no matter what else is happening in the world.

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And misogyny shapes the things that are happening.

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You know, if you are an immigrant for whom misogyny is an issue, it's going to be worse for you.

(00:24:51):
If you are a woman in prison, then you are going to have the additional oppression of misogyny.

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So this is where I have chosen to become an expert and continue to apply my expertise and

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Sometimes it's the issue of the moment and sometimes it's not.

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So I would just ask you to think about where you can apply your own expertise,

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where you can apply your own skills,

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and really just push and push and push as far in as you can.

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And then trust that your friends and neighbors are going to do the same thing on

(00:25:22):
the topics for which they are experts.

(00:25:23):
And rather than yelling at people to talk about what you think they should talk about,

(00:25:29):
listen to other experts trust them to cover their areas of expertise and you cover

(00:25:35):
yours um you know another important thing is that activism is not always visible

(00:25:43):
you know uh providing child care to the woman who lives next door so that she can

(00:25:47):
go apply for a job so she can get away from her abuser that's really important

(00:25:52):
activism

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And it's something that you can only do if you are invested in and get to know your community.

(00:25:59):
One of the dynamics that we see as social media grows to permeate all of our lives

(00:26:05):
is this sort of apologism for not investing in other people.

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You know, it's too much to respond to texts.

(00:26:13):
I'm too tired.

(00:26:14):
I don't like showing up for events.

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And I get it.

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Like, I'm an introvert.

(00:26:18):
I need a

(00:26:20):
hate working in groups I would rather do anything than have to do a group project

(00:26:24):
but the reality is like I can't do much good in the world if I don't know my

(00:26:27):
neighbors if I don't know what my friends need if I'm not connected to local

(00:26:32):
organizations and what I have found is that the more you suspend your own hostility

(00:26:38):
to doing that stuff the more you say like I'm gonna show up for this event even

(00:26:43):
though I really don't fucking feel like it the more it becomes rewarding and the

(00:26:48):
less daunting it feels and

(00:26:50):
And the more opportunities you have to make really meaningful and sometimes immediate change.

(00:26:56):
So get involved in your local communities.

(00:26:59):
The other thing, please call your representatives.

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There's been a real push on the left,

(00:27:05):
unfortunately,

(00:27:06):
to convince you that voting doesn't matter,

(00:27:08):
that your representatives don't matter,

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blah,

(00:27:11):
blah,

(00:27:12):
blah.

(00:27:13):
Our system sucks.

(00:27:15):
But it sucks because the wrong people are running,

(00:27:17):
the wrong people are voting,

(00:27:19):
and people are voting for the wrong people.

(00:27:20):
We can change it.

(00:27:22):
And we have a moral obligation to put pressure on the imperfect and sometimes

(00:27:26):
terrible people who hold political office because they actually do listen to calls

(00:27:32):
and emails.

(00:27:32):
They keep tallies.

(00:27:34):
They change their votes based on tallies.

(00:27:36):
And the research shows us that those on the right call a lot more than those on the left.

(00:27:40):
And that's not an accident because there's been a concerted effort to demoralize

(00:27:44):
those on the left to convince them that elections don't matter,

(00:27:47):
that elected officials don't matter,

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all of that.

(00:27:49):
So give that up.

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Start calling.

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It also feels really good.

(00:27:52):
It doesn't take long.

(00:27:54):
You just call.

(00:27:55):
You leave a message.

(00:27:56):
You can say whatever you want.

(00:27:58):
Don't make threats because they'll put you in jail.

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And then you really feel like you've done something because you have.

(00:28:04):
And sometimes feeling like you've done something is an important antidote to despair.

(00:28:09):
So that's, those are the two things that I would most like for you to do.

(00:28:13):
I would like for you to stop arguing with people online.

(00:28:18):
It's not going to help you.

(00:28:19):
And it's going to erode your sense of community.

(00:28:21):
I would like for you to stop consuming media that makes you miserable.

(00:28:26):
You know,

(00:28:27):
you do need to be informed about the world,

(00:28:28):
but that does not mean you have to doom scroll all day.

(00:28:30):
And you can also pick one thing to become really informed about.

(00:28:34):
There's no way you can know everything that's going on in the world.

(00:28:37):
And it's an oppressive illusion to make you think otherwise.

(00:28:43):
So that's what I've got.

(00:28:45):
Um...

(00:28:47):
That's what I have for this after school special.

(00:28:50):
I want you to know that it's okay to be scared.

(00:28:54):
And that you should turn to others and vocalize your fear.

(00:28:58):
And sometimes you'll be the person vocalizing your fear.

(00:29:01):
And sometimes you'll be the person offering reassurance that there's hope.

(00:29:05):
And I want to be for you the person offering reassurance that there is hope.

(00:29:10):
Because everything we do matters.

(00:29:14):
There are more of us than there are of them.

(00:29:17):
no matter how you define us in them.

(00:29:18):
And we can turn this around.

(00:29:21):
We need you.

(00:29:22):
We need everybody listening.

(00:29:24):
And I need everyone listening to understand that this is a long fight.

(00:29:29):
It is a fight that extends backwards hundreds of years and will extend forwards

(00:29:33):
hundreds more,

(00:29:34):
but it is a fight that we have a moral obligation to participate in.

(00:29:38):
And that means not giving up before the fight has even really begun.

(00:29:43):
I'm so glad that you're here listening.

(00:29:46):
I'm so grateful to everyone who is in the fight, however they can be.

(00:29:50):
Please find a way to pick up your link in the chain and do what you can.

(00:29:56):
And I will be back next week with more advice from people with more expertise than

(00:30:02):
me about what you can do to really help us shape a better world.

(00:30:07):
I am here with you in it.

(00:30:10):
If you ever need a pick me up,

(00:30:13):
then feel free to comment and I will try to give you a reason to feel hope.

(00:30:18):
Others in the comments may as well too.

(00:30:21):
We're here together,

(00:30:23):
even if it's across distance and even if all you can hear is my voice and it

(00:30:27):
matters.

(00:30:29):
We can change this, so let's do it.