Elections, Land Reclamation and Disaster Recovery

What do elections, land reclamation and disaster recovery have in common? Among many things, they’re all issues of public memory. As we navigate the rush of midterm elections, what will you remember in November as you organize and participate in justice and movement work? How will you ensure that what happens on November 8 serves the justice and community needs that you value?

Elections

For the past 3 election cycles, the Political Healers project has organized the Remember in November voter turnout postcard campaign, which is public memory work applied to elections. In my view, the mechanisms of our political engagement work is often predicated on everyday voters being asked to forget what happened to them and, instead, be captivated by new narratives that paint a particular picture of the past and a particular picture of the future, in a coordinated effort to steer us to vote a particular way.

I can’t tell you who to vote for. But I invite you to include in your voting standard candidates who you believe are doing the public memory work of countering what people are forgetting or don’t know about you, your people, your communities. You should NOT have to forget YOURSELF, to participate in democracy.

But honestly, if you’re put off by elections – and I know that many people are – then remember this: elections are NOT the end-all and be-all of things. Real people in real communities with real needs and problems will still need adequate, accessible and affordable resources and care after November 8th. Organizing MUST continue on November 9th and beyond, one way or the other.

BUT. Whoever wins the race will be prepared to face the expectation of change by those communities who hold newly-elected or re-elected political leaders accountable to making change. If you disregard elections because you feel powerless to change them, that’s a healing journey. We can not repair harm or win liberation without civic engagement in our political system.

Land Reclamation

Today is National Indigenous People’s Day. It’s a reimagined day, a day that is still understood by many in the United States as “Columbus Day.” And while most of us progressive-thinking people understand the colonialist nature of this intended holiday, we must take a moment to observe the intention behind the reimagining of this day as an intention to shift public memory.

That said, I’ve been noticing more and more people in virtual spaces acknowledging that they live on land that has been stolen from Indigenous people. I’ve recently acquired a phone number (907-312-5085) that anyone can text their zip code to and get a text back that tells them which Indigenous tribes originated there.Try it; it’s pretty spectacular. Acknowledging that we live on land stolen from Indigenous people is a necessary start, but did you know that you can take meaningful action NOW to return land?

More than taking the “right” side, we must heal the harm that keeps us separate and ignorant of our past – ours, our families, and the history of the land upon which we live. That level of knowledge, that public memory, is at the core of what has been robbed of so many people who call the United States of America their home. It’s the erasure that African Descendents of Slaves has experienced, it’s the erasure and reconstitution of identity that European immigrants experienced in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, it’s the erasure that immigrants and refugees experience in this country now. Most of us have a shared history of being forced to forget ourselves, our people and our land, to the point where we no longer have to be forced. We just forget.

Disaster Recovery

5 years ago Hurricane Maria caused massive devastation to Puerto Rico. Ten years ago Hurricane Sandy devastated the Eastern seaboard. Seventeen years ago it was Katrina. And in between those years there have been so many other disasters from which already-disenfranchised communities have endured and survived. In this last month of “Hurricane Season,” after the devastating impacts of Hurricanes Fiona and Ian, in the Caribbean, the Gulf, and the Atlantic eastern seaboard, the retraumatization and fresh trauma are high. It’s a lot to take in and to feel. But feel it we must, because it is through feeling the pain of loss and devastation that we ultimately gain resilience, clarity and wisdom.

Political healing means using ritual to bring cultural trauma into public memory. Changing public memory can’t only be about redefining the moment. Whether conservative or progressive, or politically nonbinary, changing the names and intentions of a thing does NOT heal the impact of the existence of that thing. Changing the name of a thing does not erase the meaning that has been made about it, or the harm that has been caused because of it. Because a thing like “Columbus Day '' is not just a name. It’s a celebration of one group of people conquering other, less powerful groups of people, and annihilating not only their physical existence (for that is a last resort). It’s about telling stories that erase our collective understanding and embodiment of their existence. It’s about defining what people remember and what they forget. What we remember and what we forget defines what we heal and what we deny, suppress and pass on to future generations. Defining public memory is the beginning of healing. If you are out to change what society remembers and forgets, and you’re battling a dominant narrative of erasure, healing MUST be included.

It’s important that we reclaim our memory of ourselves, of our experiences, of our cultural heritage and rituals. It’s important that we hold space for, listen to, and acknowledge the experience, heritage and rituals of other people. It’s equally important that we work as a collective to use our cultural rituals to bring forward our cultural trauma, our hope and vision into public memory. If we don’t declare our own experiences, the public memory of our existence will be dictated by others.

Michaela Purdue LovegoodOctober 10, 2022