Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.
:: who else but James Baldwin ::
In the meantime—a necessarily incomplete gratitude list that got me this far...
Thank you for giving a shit.
Thank you for doing your part.
Thank you for voting.
Thank you for emailing/texting me after you voted.
Thank you for donating to my Obama fundraiser and for making me feel empowered, "alien" as I may be.
Thank you to the folks who raised you, friends alongside family.
Thank you to the folks who pissed you off and challenged you along the way if only to strengthen the values and views you already held.
Thank you for sharing those values and views with your community.
Thank you for calling me on my BS and keeping me honest with myself.
Thank you for reading my blog posts because you care about what's on my mind, because you know your reading these thoughts put into words means the world to me.
Thank you for being literate and literary people; thank you for playing with words.
Thank you for sending me postcards, CDs, photos, Obama stickers (my favorite: the one I can't even read from the Navajo reservation in AZ).
Thank you for making bubbles.
Thank you for trusting me with your spare keys.
Thank you for acknowledging your privilege as husband and wife as a part of your wedding ceremony, for acknowledging ongoing injustice.
Thank you for supporting the arts and local artists.
Thank you for being community organizers.
Thank you for being my community.
Thank you for putting out zines.
Thank you for raising children the best way you know how.
Thank you for knowing we all fuck up sometimes and that we get to.
Thank you for being educators.
Thank you for following world news.
Thank you for making world news.
Thank you for looking at maps.
Thank you for knowing some words and phrases in my mother tongue.
Thank you for visiting my birthplace, for swimming in the Aegean Sea with me.
Thank you for talking to strangers.
Thank you for giving me support when I get down about all this INS bureaucracy bullshit; thank you for having a sense of humor so I can lighten up, too.
Thank you for jumping photos.
Thank you for taking me to the beach.
Thank you for jazz.
Thank you for cooking; thank you for sharing a table.
Thank you for knowing some desserts must be had two days in a row.
Thank you for making art with your hands.
Thank you for holding mine...even when they're sweaty.
Thank you for giving me a sense of home.
tk
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