The echo chamber sends unending messages each day about the onslaught of the evil that is walking the national leadership halls surrounded by an aura of being unstoppable. It is maddening.
I am sure I am not alone in being outraged, embarrassed, ready to fight, wishing to wake up and find it was a nightmare that has ended and then being sad about the pain and suffering being inflicted upon so many folks.
Catherine Meeks
These emotional responses can be immobilizing as I experience the process of sorting through them to get to the point of sitting at my computer and putting this piece together. And of course, this is the point of the echo chamber. One of the major pieces of this administration’s strategy is to keep us bombarded so we cannot sort out the truth from fiction and thus cannot find a point at which to stand in resistance.
It worked for a while with us, but thankfully we see from the continued protests across the country that it is being weakened every day. But this night is long indeed, and we have many more miles to go before we can sleep. So, we have to remember to hold on even though holding on to courage and hope is difficult.
But we have an opportunity to put our ear to the ground and listen with our hearts and souls as the animals listen when disaster is approaching. When we make an effort to do that, there is the chance to hear a clearer message. A message that encourages us to hold to the difficult task of being courageous and hopeful and to act regardless of what the echo chamber is screaming about.
I am very clear that Stephen Miller and Project 2025 are not to be taken lightly. We cannot allow ourselves to be taken in by the echo chamber’s gaslighting conversations about airplane gifts, tariffs, arresting judges and public officials, while Miller and company are deconstructing the very fabric of our democracy with their acts motivated by racist and genocidal attitudes.
Let me be clear: The things Donald Trump is doing and saying are important to note and to continue to resist, but let us not forget he is a supportive pawn in the larger game that is designed to destabilize life for people of color, poor people and to attack all the human values so many of us find to be the way a civilized society should function.
“Their idea that we can make America white again is ludicrous.”
If anyone reading this is not outraged, I wonder why not.
Their idea that we can make America white again is ludicrous. It never will be. It would be good if someone could inform Miller and his crew that they started too late. If they believe they can erase African Americans and the contributions to the history we have made in America, they are sadly mistaken.
It seems Project 2025 creators and Miller hope to create an era similar to post-reconstruction. But my recent eight-day Civil Rights Trail Pilgrimage helped me see how unlikely that it is to be achieved. We have done too much, documented it too well and it will not be destroyed by a handful of white supremacists in this moment.
The impressive witness of the collected and documented history displayed in the museums I visited and the presence of school children visiting in some of those museums give me hope.
The first group I encountered were children from Lexington, Ky. All of them were seventh graders who were brought to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum by their history teachers. The teachers bring the seventh graders each year. Later in our journey, I met a group of young students from Berkely, Calif., who were brought to Montgomery, Ala., to visit the Equal Justice Initiative amazing Legacy Museum, which includes a Lynching Memorial Garden and a new Freedom Sculpture Garden depicting slave life and other historic sites in Alabama. The teachers with both groups of students were phenomenal in their understanding of what true education must include.
So, evil is present in this administration. What other explanation can one possibly give for the behavior we are seeing exhibited? But evil is a reality, and it has been present since the beginning of time. It cannot and will not have the last word unless we keep our heads in the echo chamber and stay so confused that we forget to stand up for the truth, to act with courage even when we are afraid and to hold on to hope.
Please plan to join us for A Conversation on Courage, as a support to your journey
Catherine Meeks was given the President Joseph R. Biden Lifetime Achievement and Service Award in August 2022; was listed by Georgia Trend Magazine as one of the 500 women to watch in Georgia in 2022; retired as the Clara Carter Acree Distinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies at Mercer University; is a community and wellness activist and midwife to the soul; and the author of The Night Is Long, But Light Comes In The Morning, Meditations on Racial Healing, She previously served as founding executive director of Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing and currently serves as founder and executive director of the Turquoise and Lavender Institute for Transformation and Healing. She lives in Atlanta.
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