Because past is too often prologue, of course our resistance is personified through the visage of a Black woman’s arrest. Give Representative Cannon her things. Including campaign contributions. But spare the fake shock and performative empathy.
None of this is surprising.
It happened after reconstruction. It happened in streets in Tulsa. On bridges in Alabama. In schools in New Orleans. Of course it’s happening now. This is America. This is who we are.
And while *this* this — electing a Baptist preacher and a young Jew and an old Catholic to office — is no where near as impactful as reconstruction or Black Wall Street, or Bloody Sunday or desegregating William Frantz Elementary, it is still, still, met with the same resistance. Of course it is.
This is America. This is who we are.
And because none of this is surprising, none of what we must continue to do to overcome, someday, is surprising either. It will be tiring. And thankless. It will be dirty and frustrating. But it will be necessary.
And when victory is won, because we will claim victory, make sure you walk Representative Cannon to the front of the Capitol to make those same police who persecuted her prostate themselves on the ground as penance.
Yes, past is prologue; so I claim an equally prolific and prophetic epilogue.
Keep pushing.
