What About Us?

...I have cheese for your Whine

There is a particular kind of person who can look at the smallest spark of collective effort and explain, with astonishing confidence, why it will never become a flame.

The march is too small.
The candidate cannot win.
The boycott will fail.
The organization is imperfect.
The people are too divided.

And after a while, I have to wonder:

Who is paying you
to spew Stupid?

Because surely this much practiced hopelessness
cannot all be volunteer work.

No one is asking you to believe blindly.
No one is asking you to pretend success is guaranteed.

But could you stop poisoning the ground
before the seed has had a chance to take root?

Could you look at one imperfect effort and say:

I do not know if this will work,
but it is moving.

It is making steps.

Maybe I should look closer.

Maybe I should find out
what is happening in my own neighborhood.

Maybe there is a meeting
five streets away.

Maybe someone is organizing tenants,
feeding children,
protecting a library,
supporting workers,
registering voters,
or making sure an elderly neighbor has heat.

Maybe history is not waiting
for your approval.

But we have become remarkably skilled
at explaining why nothing can succeed.

We stand safely outside every imperfect attempt
and announce its failure before it has time to breathe.

Then, if it falters,
we smile that bitter little smile:

See?

Told you.

As though predicting the fire
is the same as carrying water.

As though naming the disease
is the same as caring for the sick.

As though reporting our own defeat
were resistance.

It is not.

Cynicism is not courage.

Detachment is not wisdom.

And surrender does not become analysis
because you posted it
in a thoughtful font.

What about us?

Not:

Who will rescue us?

Not:

Why has no one fixed this for us?

Not another recital
of everything they control.

We know they organized.

They funded.

They planned.

They attended meetings
most of us never heard about.

They ran for offices
we barely knew existed.

They bought newspapers,
courts,
consultants,
data,
influence,
and time.

And while they were building power,
we were often posting
about how powerful they were.

What about us?

Where did we show up?

What did we strengthen?

Whom did we defend?

Which frightened person
became less frightened
because we stood beside them?

Which local effort
became harder to crush
because we lent it our name,
our voice,
our money,
our kitchen table,
or our Tuesday evening?

What did we build
while we were busy explaining
why building was impossible?

Do not tell me again
that the people are powerless.

Tell me which people.

Tell me where they met.

Tell me what they tried.

Tell me who discouraged them.

Tell me who mocked the seed
before it had time to become a tree.

Movements do not arrive fully grown.

They begin awkwardly.

They begin with six people
and eleven folding chairs.

They begin with bad coffee,
misspelled signs,
arguments,
and somebody who forgot
the extension cord.

They begin before certainty.

They begin when someone says:

I am not sure.

But I am here.

So what about us?

Are we the audience
to our own undoing?

The clever voices explaining
why the door cannot be opened
while our hands remain
in our pockets?

Or can we become
the interruption?

Can we look at one small thing
taking one small step
and resist the urge
to kill it with contempt?

Can we walk into our own neighborhoods
and ask not,

Who is coming to save us?

but,

Who is already working?

Where do they need help?

What can I carry?

Because they are counting
on more than our fear.

They are counting on our fatigue.

Our isolation.

Our suspicion of one another.

Our demand for perfection.

And most of all,
they are counting on our conviction
that resistance is already impossible.

So let them hear the question now.

Not as a whine.

Not as a plea.

Not as abandoned children
waiting for somebody important
to notice us.

Let it rise as a roll call.

What about us?

We are here.

What about us?

We are looking closer.

What about us?

We are finding each other.

What about us?

We are done confusing despair
with intelligence.

And if you have nothing to offer
but another reason
we are doomed—

at least have the decency
to step aside.

Somebody behind you
is carrying water.