The last time I went to the Chapel Hill Public Library, I spent time at the photo essay “Tarred Healing,” which asks viewers to engage more deeply with the history of local racism and the importance of resistance. The line “fighting is a part of healing” resonated with me, and prompted me to start writing this piece. The events of the intervening days - particularly, the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX, and the introduction of HB755, North Carolina’s latest legislative assault on LGBTQ+ students, parents, and educators - convinced me to finish and share it:
I was in the seventh grade when I first experienced what it’s like when everyone around you feels helpless. My little cousin, Josh, was dying of cancer. My mom was spending time at the hospital with his mom, coming home physically and emotionally spent. And while I overheard some of the details of what was happening to Josh and his immediate family, what I experienced more closely was the tension building within our household.
I sat in a big blue chair in our living room with a #2 pencil and a stack of loose leaf paper, trying to hold the sorrow at bay just long enough to finish a huge book report. But there was no way to drown out the sounds coming from the next room: my dad’s loud, harsh words, my mom’s tearful replies. It was too much for me to bear, and I screamed at my parents, pleading for them to stop. The next thing I knew, my father was standing over me, redirecting his verbal venom at me, and my mom shrieked at him not to hurt me.
The truth is, we were all hurting.
Josh’s death hurt us all - and for me, even after the grief of losing my little cousin receded, the weight of the helplessness we all felt during that time lingered.
I carried that weight with me as I sat in my middle school auditorium surrounded by classmates for a slide presentation about Scott D. Moss, a former student who’d been admitted to Harvard but died from cancer before he could go. Scott’s closest friends and family had started a memorial walk-a-thon to raise money for cancer research. I walked out of that auditorium clinging to my pledge sheet, determined to participate.
Standing on a doorstep with a #2 pencil in my hand again, I handed my clipboard to a neighbor so he could add his name to the list of pledges: 10 cents a mile, a quarter a mile, a nickel a mile - it all added up. As I went from one door to the next, telling neighbor after neighbor that I was walking so that one day, kids like Scott and my cousin Josh could be cured, the weight of helplessness began to lift.
By the time I was in high school, what had once made me feel helpless now fueled my efforts co-organizing the Scott D. Moss Walk-a-Thon with four of my friends; in our junior and senior years the event raised a total of $25,000. We had no illusion that these funds alone would cure cancer, but it would help. And, it was a way we could join together to fight, and in the process, heal some of the pain we’ve all felt from feeling helpless in the face of a loved one’s cancer diagnosis.
I realize now that’s when I developed the coping mechanism that remains central to who I am and why I do what I do today. The work I do as an organizer, a strategist, a coach and a trainer - all of it’s an expression of my need to fight back when I’m feeling helpless. I do what I do because, to my core, I believe that none of us should have to feel alone and helpless in the face of suffering.
Yet, scrolling through social media in recent days, I’ve seen hundreds of people sharing their collective feelings of helplessness in the face of lawmakers who behave as if books affirming gender nonconformity are a danger to our children and AR-15s are not. Now that more posts are popping up suggesting ways to make our schools truly safe for everyone, I see people expressing skepticism that anything they do can help. And, I see people wanting to do something, but feeling like they don’t have enough money to give to every cause or enough time to attend every event or join every group, feeling like what they do will never be enough.
Here’s the thing - and I say this with the authority of a Ph.D. in history to back me up: Big changes happen not because of isolated acts, but because of collective action, sustained over time by lots and lots of people who cannot do it all and don’t need to, because everyone does their part. And there are LOTS of parts to be done. Choose the ones that energize you, that feel most meaningful to you, and, yes, the ones that fit your schedule and your resources.
For me, in the next week that means having a 1:1 conversation with the most recent leader of the local Moms Demand Action chapter, and visiting NC legislators to help build opposition to HB755 when I’m in Raleigh on Wednesday.
For you, it could be something else. Join an organization. Wear orange. Start a fundraiser. Attend a rally.
Just do something - because fighting really is a part of healing.