24 Jun Pride(s)
“I’m sick and tired of bein’ sick and tired!” That’s what Fannie Lou Hamer, the magnificent Civil Rights leader and head of the Mississippi Freedom Democrats said, and I thought I understood what she meant back in the 1960s. But now I understand it in my bones. You determine to manufacture affirmation. It’s a deliberate decision. You seek affirmation as if it were a place, and so it is. It’s the place where Yes We Can comes from. Anger can get you there–and women especially have a hard time with anger. But we’re learning to walk that path. Religion gets some people there. Love get some people there. There are many roads. It’s the mysterious place of reserve from which we draw resilience, imagination, even humor. Endurance--and pride in endurance. Art flourishes there. Like jazz and lullabies. Signals flash there, like songs, puzzles, quilts with codes that map directions...