By Sidney Wegener

Revolution: “a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favor of a new system”

“A radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure” [1]

Revolution: “young black women as innovators and radical thinkers” [2]

Revolution: the statue of Christopher Columbus coming down and four young Indigenous 

women in traditional cultural wear standing on top of the empty bust. [3]

Revolution: Two-Spirit Indigenous people existing outside of a binary white supremacist 

colonial structure of gender.

Revolution: Black trans women existing

Revolution: listening

Revolution: to

Revolution: Black

Revolution: womxn

Revolution: leaders

Revolution: Black trans women existing

Revolution: if positions of power were held by Black, Indigenous, Immigrant, Undocumented, differently abled, queer, trans, non-binary, womxn… what would the world look like

Revolution: reimagining

Revolution: hope

Revolution: loving without reserve

Revolution: loving women of color

Revolution: women of color loving themselves for themselves

Revolution: Black, queer masculinity

Revolution: the world turning upside down and backwards instead of repeating histories of 

tyranny and oppression, those pushed to the bottom standing on top

Revolution: understanding that you will not always understand

accepting that which you have not experienced as a valid truth

Revolution: “I don’t get it” isn’t an excuse for bigotry or erasure

Revolution: my grandmother changes her mind about the importance of gay rights

Revolution: a flower losing its petals before permission from the gardener because it’s time to be 

reborn and that’s not up to the blinding light above

Revolution: the political is personal. if it does not feel that way to you, it is because the political 

serves to protect your privilege

Revolution: abolishing the Prison Industrial Complex

Revolution: abolishing the police

Revolution: unlearning

Revolution: relearning

Revolution: working against systems of oppression rather than only acknowledging them

Revolution: taking care of yourself

Revolution: naps are productive

Revolution: what is normal is not necessarily natural

Revolution: happiness

Revolution: earth isn’t an it. earth lives and breathes and gives. earth can die.

Revolution: “first world, developed” countries are still colonizers

Revolution: “first world, developed” countries are not examples of progress, they are responsible 

for global destruction

Revolution: reparations for descendants of slaves in the U.S.

Revolution: land back to Native people

Revolution: systemic support

Revolution: Black liberation

Revolution: freedom

Revolution: “not a one time event”

“breaking silences”

“without community there is no liberation… but community must not mean the shedding 

of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist.” [4]

Endnotes

[1] Dictionary.com. 

[2] Saidiya Hartman. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments. New York: Norton Press, 2019.

[3] Rosa María Zamarrón. “Waawiiyatanong Resurgence.” July 3, 2020. [4] Audre Lorde. Your Silence Will Not Protect You. United Kingdom: Silver Press, 2017

Sidney is a first year MA candidate for Women’s History at Sarah Lawrence College. They are pursuing research on interracial lesbian relationships in United States women’s reformatories and penitentiaries during the early twentieth century.