Friend,
Today is the anniversary of my mommy’s transition. This is a day when I’m usually enveloped in loss and sadness -- her absence especially pronounced. An only child, her caregiver, and medical proxy, I had a front row seat to her leukemia battle. My heart broke as her body slowly shut down.
As we debated whether or not to put my mom in a medically induced coma, I asked her, “Mommy, what do you want to do?” The last word she ever spoke to me, whispered forcefully, was “Fight!” And she did fight, just like she always had.
Today, I am not home with family -- instead, I have just arrived in El Paso, Texas. I can think of no better way to honor how my mother lived and transitioned than to demonstrate the fierceness of a mother’s love and to fight for the children detailed here.
Sign on to join me in the fight now >>
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We tell ourselves that if the world only saw all these detained children, we wouldn’t be in this draconian, calloused, inhumane, and corrupt cesspool of a moment. But I’m fatigued by the fact that the full freedoms, safety, and health of brown and black children has always been justice delayed.
The lives of these children, and our families, remains something to be negotiated, compromised, and moderated. And the brutal images of suffering haven’t swung the pendulum of justice.
Horrific images like slavery, lynchings, Emmett Till, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Maria, and the current Border Crisis have assaulted our senses, shook us to our core, made many shake their heads...and then, look away.
No more. Don’t look away. Don’t be silent. Be outraged and fight!
Do good. Do work. Do justice.
Today, I will sear in my brain and imprint on my heart, everything I saw and learned, especially from our children.
And then I will get back to work -- fighting and demanding, that this hate-fueled administration #ClosetheCamps -- I hope you’ll join me >>
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In solidarity,
-- Ayanna
| Paid for by The Committee to Elect Ayanna Pressley |