Composting the myth of america
Hey friends,
The longest days of the year are upon us. ☀️ And alongside the continued devastation of genocide, racial violence, and transphobia, the Great Turning we’re a part of continues to reveal glimmers of possibility.
In New York City, we see proof that the era of profit over people in politics is over. In Washington, DC, the people showed the federal government that they will not cower to the racist, dangerous National Guard occupation by electing the District's first democratic socialist Mayor. And across the country, decisions like the United Auto Workers’ divestment from israel consistently remind us that organizing works.
What a time to be alive: Where truth seeps through the cracks of capitalism like a dandelion sprouting from cement.
We are grateful to be among the many who believe another world is possible. And we are overjoyed to be growing Libertroph's team of people who are devoted to uplifting art and stories about how white people have, do, and will continue to organize for an end to racism.
Please join us in welcoming Haylee Millikan to the Libertroph team as our Literary Editor 🥳 Haylee is a poet, artist, and fact checker who believes in the interconnectedness of all things, love as action, and imagination as a radical force. Learn more about them at www.hmillikan.com.
In the spirit of truth-telling, we’re sharing a poem Haylee wrote in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. It is part of a vast array of work by truth-tellers and anti-racist organizers that disrupts the idea of america’s 250th birthday, reminding us that the colonial project that became american empire started long before 1776, was intentionally constructed as a myth, and can be (is being) undone. If we continue to organize, in a principled way, together.
May this holiday weekend offer you a moment of pause to consider how you might disrupt the mythology of whiteness and reclaim ownership of the truth. And may we all lean into our agency to take one more action (and another, and another, and another…) toward a world where the Black people who built this country, and the Indigenous people whose land it’s constructed upon, live in safety and abundance.
In solidarity and love,
Alyssa & Julienne
By Haylee Millikan
In 1492, dawn came.
There was no light
before us.
No they.
Before us eyes were closed: darkness,
we saw,
could be controlled, must
be brought
to light. We said:
One voice, that is all
there is:
mine,
not millions—the world
anyone but everyone’s
to take.
Impoverished ourselves
in scarcity,
preached this: never
enough.
We made all blood
except ours abstract;
all backs
except ours bendable;
all names
except ours unutterable;
all songs
except ours discordant;
our alternative antiquity
our banner. We culled
the contemporary, shouted
down the amassing
dissent.
We are Baldwin’s
jeering history,
screaming behind Ruby Bridges,
her books cradled as shield;
we pretend
we have always been the shield.
We pretend, even as we groan
pressing our knees into
their necks:
we protest,
we have never been
the harm.
This mythology that owns us.
Even now
in other’s freedom, it is our best
we are doing, the mythology
never enough
for all of us to be whole.
