That photo up there is absolutely me every single night. If you don't know, I'm a voracious reader. And I read it all.
Erotica. Fantasy. Sci-fi. Nonfiction. History books. History of law books. Political theory. Public policy. Sociology. Psychology. Astrology. I fucking read it all and I love it all.
And when I read a book that's really, really good, I usually can't shut up about it. If you're on my other newsletter for The Everyday Lawyer and/or you've talked to me in the past 3 months, then yes, you know what's coming.
The book I currently cannot shut up about is Doppelganger by Naomi Klein.
Y'all, when I tell you this book is the blueprint for the times we find ourselves in. It is the literal theoretical map of everything happening in our society complete with in depth explanations as to why it is happening.
This book should be required reading for all adults. Ever since I started reading it a couple of months ago (reading it slowly is best), I've had several life instances where I've said out loud "Omg I'm in what Naomi Klein calls the Mirror World right now."
And I've had at least one instance where a friend who I've told about this book 100 million times (thanks Bianca for not killing me yet, lol!) has asked me: "I know I haven't read it, but I think this is Naomi Klein's Mirror World."
Spoiler alert: she was right.
But that's not why I'm talking about this book today.
I'm talking about this book today because the astrology is astrology-ing and its target is the United States political scene. And because we have another situation where a woman is running for President against Donald Trump and Jill Stein is the leading 3rd party candidate to vote for, it's feeling very 2016...in my body.
I was sitting down today trying to figure out why I felt like crying every other second (besides the fact that I'm getting my period). When I really sat down and tapped on it, I realized I'm still carrying the trauma, fear, and loneliness I experienced during Trump Round One (2016 to the beginning of 2021) in my body.
I'm still carrying the shock of living through those 5 years in my body. I'm realizing I never really took time to metabolize all that shit. And then I realized that we as a collective never really took time to metabolize that shit.
Joe Biden got elected and people breathed a sigh of relief for the first time in 5 years, not because anyone thought or thinks Joe Biden is amazing, but simply because he's not that kind of raging narcissist who has an unwavering and relentless commitment to dysregulate your nervous system.
And even though Donaldo never really went away and continued to lurk in the background, now he's back front and center. We're used to him now. I certainly feel less threatened by him now. At least that's what my mind says.
But today I learned that my body is telling a different story.
Intellectually, I'm not that invested in the outcome of this election and I don't have any strong convictions about who you should vote for between the red team and the blue team because they're basically the same team.
But that's not how my body feels. My body is still in 2016 somewhere saying that if Trump wins, then I'm absolutely screwed if I get pregnant because there won't be any women's rights. Never mind that the me of now has a lot more knowledge than the me of then starting with the fact that I now know exactly when the 5-day period is that I can get pregnant each month and I tend to stay in the house during that time.
That knowledge isn't canceling out what my body feels -- what my body felt -- when we were facing the possibility of a Donaldo presidency back in 2016. My newly acquired knowledge of capitalism, race, class, and gender politics isn't canceling out the experiences from 2016 to 2021 that my body still carries.
So while I know better intellectually, I'm still in the same place physically. And all the recent political drama is stirring up that old trauma and those old feelings.
Towards the end of Doppleganger, Naomi Klein talks about Palestine. Specifically, she talks about how Jewish folks are taught to relate to the Holocaust and how the Holocaust is used to justify the annihilation of the Palestinians.
Specifically, she says that in Hebrew school the Holocaust is taught as a re-traumatization. She says they're drilled with facts and numbers about how many died, who died, and by what method of torture. But she says there was no room for grief in the teaching of the holocaust. There was no room for a discussion of what accountability looks like for a people who are re-member-ing and what to ensure that something like the Holocaust never happens again to anyone.
Basically, she said the way she was taught the Holocaust was designed to activate what Resmaa Menakem describes as the "annihilation" stress response in Jewish folks. And that response is what Zionists use to get Jewish folk to sign onto annihilating Palestine and Palestinians for the sake of a Jewish state.
But she says Jewish folks would be better off if the Holocaust was taught as a means for re-member-ing instead so they could have the opportunity to actually integrate and metabolize the trauma.
When I read this section of her book, I couldn't help but think about those of us here in the United States and how maybe we need a lot of re-member-ings, but that we especially need a re-member-ing for the years that were 2016 to 2021.
Because the truth is that we haven't really had an opportunity to recover or process or integrate. It's been one hit after another after another. Recall that Donaldo's presidency ended in the middle of another COVID spike.
And I think finding ourselves in another election year where Donaldo is facing off against a woman, a nonwhite one at that, is less of a re-member-ing and more of a retraumatizing.
It's not that I don't think it can be a re-member-ing, it's just that for it to be one we the people will have to do it for ourselves. The politicians certainly aren't going to do it for us.
The lessons this time around can't just be "Vote blue no matter who" out of fear. It can't be that we let fear be the thing that controls us and exhausts us so much that we have nothing left to give after the election is over.
It has to be that we somehow find space to re-member so that we can also remember that we can and should ask for more because we deserve more.
Listen, I'm not a fan of Kamala Harris. I lived in California during her reign of terror. I ran in elite lawyer circles then and I heard all the behind-the-scenes ugly stuff that regular people aren't supposed to know about her time in office.
But that's just my experience.
And what I want you to know is that whether you plan to lend her your support or not, there are some basic truths we have to hold her to because we deserve more:
She can't just be another zionist robot, but it looks like she is.
She can't just be another dog of the capitalist class.
It's not enough for her to be "Not Trump." She needs to be something more.
A writer who I deeply respect and love, Frederick Joseph wrote a brilliant essay about this that I highly recommend.
In the meantime, I ask you to consider whether your body and your mind are in the same place regarding our current political situation or whether they disagree.
And if they do disagree, what work needs to be done to create some alignment between them?
Right now, my body is trying to convince me that Kamala could be safe, but my mind knows better.
What is your body telling you? And does your mind know better or worse?
These are trying times. The best way through is to sense into your slowest part and move from there.
May you choose love over fear and safety over comfort,
Brionna
Communal Solidarity Practices for Summer: Climate change is here and that means it's very hot. Please remember your houseless neighbors this summer. When you leave the house, bring extra water with you and fruit to support their hydration. You can ask a houseless person if they want you to buy them food or a drink in a restaurant (coffee shops are great). This makes them a paying customer so they can enjoy a bit of air conditioning and use the bathroom. This is an especially beneficial practice if you're in a city.
Please remember that you are much closer to being houseless than a billionaire, which means houseless folks are a significantly more accurate reflection of our (and your) reality than billionaires. Please treat them with dignity and respect and honor their humanity.
