When I was young, I was a ballet dancer.
As a result, I spent a lot of time reading books about ballet.
I also spent a lot of time reading books about the Holocaust, fascism and Nazi Germany. (I know, I was a super fun kid.)
I never forgot a few of those books, but the one that I’ve been thinking about a lot these days is a book about tween/teenage ballet dancers at a school in Europe when the Nazis take over, and how their lives changed (for the worse - I don’t think this is a spoiler here), and what they end up doing to fight back.
When I was a kid, and reading this book, I would cheer on the resistance, thinking, “If this ever happened again, I know what I’d do.”
But, honestly, I didn’t think that anything like this could ever happen again.
Secondarily, I’d think, “Where were the adults in all of this? Why did they leave the fighting up to these kids?”
I’d end up, always, thinking this: “Not on my watch.”
But maybe that was easier to say when I thought I’d never have to actually fight.
Fast forward to my own adulthood, where it is happening again. We have Texas lawmakers being threatened to get in line or face being arrested, or worse. We have National Guard in DC being activated, largely for a show of force, at tourist locations where they are taking pictures with people and visually reinforcing a narrative that isn’t in line with facts. We have voting maps being redrawn, voting by mail being challenged, and a possible deal with another dictator on the line.
It is happening again.
In the introduction to our book, Sara Blanchard and I lay out our "whys" behind the writing of Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Racism. There have been times when I've read my "Misasha" section out loud to audiences during speaking engagements, and the feedback that I've gotten, especially when I get to a certain part, is that it makes people cry.
To be clear, my aim in writing that wasn't to make people cry. I'm glad that people feel empathy and that my personal experience resonates with them so deeply that they understand my "why."
My aim was, back at the time of writing this book, to get White women - and White people, more generally - to use their privilege to uproot systemic racism without centering themselves in the process, so that the sign that my then 7-year old son wrote (on his own, I might add) prior to going to a protest/vigil in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd is never again written, thought, or experienced by another 7 year old out there, or by a kid of any age.
My aim now, slightly refined for 2025, is to get all of us to fight for each other before it’s too late. We are in an authoritarian state where it’s fine to take away school lunches from kids, where we can change the history we don’t like, where we can make up stories instead of telling hard truths, and where those who have always done just fine are controlling the narrative now, again, for all of us.
I know there are those of you out there who think, perhaps angrily, that “this isn’t who we are.” I would love to believe that’s true. But I don’t, not anymore.
It is happening again.
Because we still have kids in our country, as I talk about in that section of the book, who have to write "My Life Matters" on a sign in Magic Marker in their second grade handwriting and then bring that sign to a group of adults to indeed convince them of that fact. We aren't who we thought we are, and we were never who we thought we were.
And yet, and this is a BIG and yet, can we be who we should be, especially when it comes to our kids? My whole work is centered around the hope that yes, we can. But that doesn't come from tears, hand wringing, or letting the overwhelm consume you until inertia takes over (I speak from experience here).
It comes from intentional, continuous action that fights against the tide of authoritarianism and fascism daily, from some level of individual sacrifice for the greater good, for believing that we can be better, for moving away from performative allyship and likes and follows to purpose and progress that you may never even put on a social media platform (that's my hope!), for getting tired and realizing that yes, you can be tired and rest, but you still need to then get up and continue to fight.
Otherwise, we're failing my kids, your kids, and all of the other kids, who deserve so much better than the story that we have been trying to tell them about themselves, and this nation, and what their history could and should be.
I don’t want him to be asking, “Where were the adults?” when we hopefully have the ability to look back at this time in history. I don’t want him to think that resistance was on his shoulders because there weren’t enough people ready to act on his behalf.
Not on my watch. Hopefully not on yours either.
For the kids,
(Photo from a George Floyd vigil in 2020, with my oldest son’s poster board that he made by himself with what he wanted to say to everyone there. If it breaks your heart like it does mine, we can do something about this. Resist. They deserve better.)