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.
