Where I Stand
(Or, Why It Matters)
Personally, there are challenges in my own life right now. Serious ones. But none so overwhelming that they justify silence.
I know what failing systems look like. More importantly, I know what they feel like inside a human body. Once you have that knowledge, it becomes impossible not to recognize when a system is breaking down in real time.
This space is usually dedicated to personal and internal investigation. But it feels shallow, even dishonest, to focus only on myself while babies are being separated from their families and while people are dying in encounters with armed state authorities in broad daylight, simply for trying to move through the world and respond to what is directly in front of them.
We have seen these patterns before.
The normalization of masked state power.
The use of lethal force in public spaces.
Mass rallies fueled by grievance.
Dehumanizing language.
Sustained attacks on independent journalism.
We have also seen what happens when education, art, care, and service to the vulnerable are treated as expendable rather than essential to a functioning society.
It is difficult to accept that people who love me remain aligned with an administration that would, without hesitation, place someone like me in the expendable column. That truth is painful. But discomfort does not excuse denial.
The very worst outcomes of history, genocide, totalitarian rule, state-engineered mass death, have occurred on this land. Slavery was a holocaust. So was colonialism. In many ways, my existence is in part due to both of those atrocities, as is the existence of all Americans.
In more recent history, it hasn’t happened again. That distinction matters, and it must be preserved.
But history is clear about how those outcomes begin.
They do not arrive all at once. Democracies erode when communities stop protecting one another. When fear replaces solidarity. When the crimes of the state are excused, minimized, or normalized. When ordinary people are persuaded that what is happening is inevitable, justified, or not their responsibility.
That is why collective action, civic protection, and moral clarity are not overreactions. They are preventative measures. They are the tools societies have used, again and again, to stop the worst from repeating.
There will come a time when this period is studied.
It will be examined by people driven by curiosity, greed, desperation, absolution, or some combination of all four. As with most histories, facts will be bent to suit the era and the agendas that require them.
But there will also be investigations. Public and private. Records will surface. Statements will be reviewed. Silence will be noted. So will courage. People’s positions will be traced. Their words will be weighed against their actions.
And so today, the only question that matters to me is this:
Where do I want my descendants to find me?
I want them to find me standing with those who were targeted.
I want them to find me unwilling to confuse comfort with morality.
I want them to find me paying attention when it mattered.
If this digital record remains, I hope it gives those who carry my DNA solid ground to stand on. A clear answer to where I was, how I stood, and why I refused to look away.
