Facebook Publication Date: 10/27/2018 11:10

From the desk of Lace on Race

At this point, let there be no misunderstanding, dissembling, rationalizing, or minimizing.

These events of the last weeks are nothing more or less than the inevitable consequences of the last two years–more than the last two actually, but for our purposes, let’s start the clock at 2016.

We knew. We all knew. Racist and xenophobic rhetoric cannot be simply contained, unleashed into a world when expedient, and then locked back away. Once the verbal demons are unleashed, they morph.

What we do with these shapeshifting demons are the measure of who we are, how we see ourselves, who we choose to be.

Some of us saw it right away and have fought against demons; others have steadfastly refused to recognize and acknowledge. We must keep on fighting, and we must never give in to the temptation to draw the sleeping veil over our collective eyes.

There are others whose awakenings came later. Their responsibility is no less.

There are those who welcomed these demons, because they resonated with the demons already taking residence in their minds and hearts and souls. The permission they received, the egging on, the normalization of a particular kind of cruelty and disregard for humanity is nothing new to those who have given their lives to fighting these legions, both internal and institutional. The only mercy, if we can call it that, is that we no longer have to squint quite so much; this bald and, yes, proud unveiling of who they are *and have always been* makes them easier to spot, their tactics easier to see.

There are some who see, but refuse to bear witness. Refuse to concede that their willful inattention has been and is no more than collusion. Who have self righteously insisted on their virtue in their ability to ‘see both sides’. Who have traded their own souls for the short term gains they still have not seen, in service of a regime that will hurt them, but who will hurt others worse. They are as weaponized as anyone with actual guns, and must be fought with the same relentless and unblinking effort.

And yes, there are those at real choicepoints. Those who truly did not see the urgency of the last 24 months; who truly thought those of us sounding alarms were hyperbolic. Even as they slowly awaken, the crust around their eyes from their toxic sleep will make them difficult to reach. But reach them we must. With the same relentless effort.

And for those of us who knew, but have sat as mostly silent observers–that is to say most of us–I say this.

It has not been for nothing that we have been ‘annoying’, and ‘depressing’ and ‘hyperfocused’. It has not been for nothing that we have been pushing you to greater praxis. It has not been for nothing that we have challenged you to make confronting this evil the central focus of your lives. This has never been adjunctive or peripheral to our lives as moral people. This has never been a detour from our interior intellectual and ethical lives. This has never been something to like and share and throw 5 dollars to.

These last weeks as I have been doing still more real world praxis has changed me. Made me double down. Made me aware that mine is not to be a life of ease.

Nor is yours.

I asked, weeks ago, what people who have chosen to follow/friend me either on my personal page or at Lace on Race have done to tithe–their talents, their material resources, their time, their focus on what is nothing than the defining time of my life, and all of yours. Out of more than 4000 of you, there were less than 20 responses.

I ask you, *each of you*, where that puts you in the cohorts of the profiles I outlined above.

This is not for shame. No. It is not for self flagellation, or for self indulgence. It is for conviction.

If the events of the last weeks have not convinced you of the times and of the urgency, this missive may well not either. But I have faith. Faith that out of the 4000 of you who have watched and consumed and observed, that there are 400 of you who are actually ready to walk with real resolve, and will put everything on the line to do so. To do the heavy lifting that you say you want to do to be the person, and be part of the People, whom you insist you want to be.

We have not been ‘All In’. We have not been ‘Ride or Die’. We have not been ‘100%ers’. Not one of us. Not you. Not me. This must change.

We have some real opportunities to change the electoral landscape over the next days. I will be opening up threads for national, state, regional and local so people can share. While we cannot endorse at LoR, we can amplify best practices, and speak of values, and the people and initiatives/propositions that share those values.

But that, by itself, will not be enough. You know this. I know it too.

Whatever it is that I was calling myself doing these last years, I need to double, triple down. So do you. Each one of you. All 4000 of you, and your friends and your families and your workspaces, houses of worship, front yards.

This work needs to cost you in ways you have heretofore resisted. Our clenches are collusion. Our clenches are collusion. Our clenches are collusion.

80 years ago, the unthinkable was happening. It’s happening again. This needs to go beyond empathy; needs to go beyond self interest. It is not hyperbole to say that our very humanity is at stake. We may well lose, but it will not be for my lack of effort and conviction and resolve.

And it cannot be because of your paralysis, or ennui, or despair. We gotta keep stepping even through all of this. We have to. You need to stop seeing this as an elective. You need to see this as the fight of your very lives.

Hesed: fittingly, a Hebrew word. It speaks to a kind of love you won’t find in love and light and gauzy fabrics and wistful looking out into the middle distance. It speaks of a resilient, relentless (there’s that word again), tough, muscled love that does not clutch or clench or faint.

I have spent the last 9 months doing my level best to guide you to Hesed. I will spend my last breath doing this very thing.

Find your Hesed. And then fucking move this earth.

Yes there will be more later. But this cannot wait. Lace up. Walk.

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