Meeting in Defiance

By saying “no is not a lonely utterance,” I am not denying that sometimes we are alone when we are hit by violence.

Nor am I denying that sometimes when you speak out you might do so as a lone voice.

When I mean is that by saying no you participate in a longer history; no as how we know of the violence that remains.

We meet in no, and not necessarily in person.

We meet in defiance.

To say no, you make a connection, an electric connection.

Right now, we need that connection.

Of course, I learnt this from Audre Lorde.

Lorde tells us she was out driving her car and heard on the news that a white police officer had been acquitted of the murder of a black child, Clifford Glover, in 1973.

History gets repeated. Too many unheard complaints.

Lorde stopped the car, to let it in, the violence of the police in, of white supremacy, in. She stopped the car and a poem, “Power,” came out, with its electric line, not to let our power “lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire.”

In a way, by saying something Lorde said no.

No to the violence, yes.

But also, no to not saying anything.

She refuses to be silent, to let this news, this reality, pass by without complaint.

What Lorde let in, what she gets out, we read.

No can be how we meet in an action.

I am thinking of that no, now. How we need it.

Still, it is hard not to be overwhelmed.

There is so much to take in. Too much.

We assemble, saying no, doing it.

We are watching a genocide in Gaza. We are watching as our government continues to send Israel the weapons they use to murder tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Destroying anything so they can take everything.

It should be unbelievable.

How much more can we watch? How much more suffering?

We cannot look away, we must not.

No is Not a Lonely Utterance was sent out for a legal read. Every time I used the word genocide for what is happening in Gaza, it was “flagged” for “global sensitivities.”

What globe is this, too sensitive to hear about genocide but not too sensitive to commit it or to stop it being committed?

We are not just watching, we