Honoring Ruth

 

Like the passing of John Lewis earlier this year, today, another bright light has burnt out. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has left us, amidst the fear, turbulence, and tumultuousness of the times. She ran a good race, she lived a life aligned to justice, she was a beacon and a symbol and an inspiration. I did not know her personally, but her death has left me greatly saddened, and I feel I must express my gratitude for how she expended her energy in this world. Thank you, Justice Ginsburg, for all that you’ve done.

After reading the news of Justice Ginsburg’s death, I opened the book that is on my nightstand, a sizable tome about American presidents and leadership principles, a lofty four-part biography that helps put me to sleep at the end of the day and aspire for some fleeting greatness of my own. Tonight, I read the words of Abraham Lincoln, a phrase from a speech to Congress one month before he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. President Lincoln said, “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.” Justice Ginsburg, we honor you today.

So, I was thinking about this, and about John Lewis, and about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and about all of the justice-tuned heroes of the past generations who are gone now.

And then I thought about the world in this current moment and life in America in particular.  We are suffering from a global pandemic that has been exacerbated by leaders who dismiss and refute scientific facts, despite the staggering statistic that nearly 200,000 Americans are now dead. A good portion of our country is quite literally on fire, the result of global warming, an inconvenient truth that those same leaders would urge you to ignore. The four-hundred-year-old legacy of racism in America continues to be on full display, on SmartPhone screens and social media feeds, as we witness life after life after life being extinguished brutally and prematurely, then swipe to read articles about the disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 on communities of color. Our decades of under-funding education and social services, of providing corporations with more rights and political power than our citizens, of seeding mistrust amongst our populace with ready-made messages about the evil and the villainy of the other brought to you by our sponsors, have caught up with us, and we find ourselves terrified and disjointed and afraid.

I thought about all of this, and I was reminded of an image from the film Waiting for Superman – this idea that perhaps someone great and smart and peaceful and loving and strong will come along soon and make the world better than it is today and free us from all of this. And I was reminded that this idea is a fallacy – they are not coming. It is up to us. We cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

So where to next, my fellow citizens? Are we to spiral out of control into the depths of populist extremism and authoritarian mandate? Are we to put our head in our hands and, defeated, accept a wave of anger that has swept our nation and all of the destructive choices that come with it? Are we to embrace the continued oppression of our marginalized communities, the commonly accepted greed and outsized voice of our most powerful and most wealthy and most data-rich individuals and entities? Or can we, and will we, act? Will we embrace the call, as individuals and as a collective, to shape the arc of history and win some great victory for humanity?

“But what can I do?” one might ask. “I am no civil rights leader, no Congressman, no feminist leader, no Supreme Court Justice. What role can I play in this inescapable human story?”

I have a confession. I ask myself this too, nearly all the time, and more often than not, that is where it ends. I vote, sure. I go to protests and chant for freedom, occasionally. However, in 2016, I didn’t do much more than that, and I’ve seen what’s happened since. And yet, America offers many of us an array of rare and precious gifts. We can vote. We can speak freely about our beliefs and work to rally others. We can write political blog posts without fear of imprisonment. We can activate our friends and our colleagues and encourage political engagement because the brutal and unflinching truth is THE GOVERNMENT IS US. Our leaders reflect our beliefs. Our budgets reflect our values. And so, we must passionately and desperately engage in the political process, like those heroes before us, to ensure that our nation is a true and meaningful reflection of our highest ideals.

There are roughly six weeks until the next presidential election. For those of you who, like me, will ardently vote for Joe Biden, please see this Google Doc for a list of ideas of things that you can do to support democracy in America, and the peaceful, democratic ousting of a two-bit tyrant. (Thank you, Sam Abbott, for creating and sharing).

Conversely, if you are one of my conservative brothers or sisters voting for the other guy, know that I still resoundingly love you. Full stop. The world has plenty of hate-filled rhetoric that seeks to divide us, and I refuse to participate.

In short, I am missing Justice Ginsburg tonight, and I am hoping that a small piece of her truth, her justice, her courage can live in me and in others on this day and in the days to come. I am hoping that her life will inspire us to engage in this moment and that we will follow her lead to make our country more just, more equal, and more promising for all of us. 

Again, thank you, Justice Ginsburg.

With love,
Josh