“I used to look at old pictures of the ’60s and ’70s and wish that I could be part of a revolution. I guess what I didn’t understand then is that a revolution comes in response to an evil that is equally compelling.”
“A revolution does not exist in a vacuum. There is unrest and fear and anger. In the best case scenario, a beautiful flower of resistance blossoms in response. But look at what surrounds the flower. Right next to it there is the threat of war, the threat of annihilation, the threat of loss, of imprisonment, of chaos. There cannot be one without the other. I’m learning that now. We have entered an altered state where everything that was once seemingly untouchable is now vulnerable to destruction and dismantlement; our environment, our human rights, our protections, basic decency, democracy, civilization, itself.
And so I find myself here, living in a country that is at the brink of two things that cannot be disentangled from each other: resistance and destruction. I don’t know what will happen next. No one does. And that’s the hardest part about living in America right now. But, while we are in the midst of many serious threats, we are also in the midst of a blossoming. There is a revolution afoot. There is a resistance that is stronger than the evil it answers. We are part of that now. For better or for worse, this is a revolution.
This is what it feels like. It’s not all free love and social justice and marching in the streets. It’s fear and uncertainty and anger. The byproducts of a toxic run-off create the most fertile soil for the rarest kind of bloom.
Maybe years from now children will look at the pictures that flood our media screens and think about how exciting it must have been to be part of it all. But I hope we won’t forget the conditions that led to the pictures. We are fighting against no benign foe. But we will continue to fight, like the generations before ours. We will fight against a demagogue administration that’s taken our country hostage in something of a coup.
We will fight, and we will win. We’ve got to.
—Jackie McLean, frontwoman for Roan Yellowthorn
Proceeds from this song will go directly to The Ocean Conservancy.
