#but you have kids out there not knowing Rosa Parks was an activist who knew what she was doing

[critical-and-cringe]

The fact that advanced geometry skills are considered more important by the American School system then like....

Basic knowledge of history that doesn’t revolve around the founding fathers...

Is an absolute atrocity.

[raywritesthings]

Worth

My Writing Fandom: Doctor Who Characters: Thirteenth Doctor, Ryan Sinclair, Graham O'Brien, Yasmin Khan Summary: The Doctor grapples with her past and the past in the wake of what happened in Montgomery. *Since tumblr won’t let external links show up in the search feature I am not linking to my AO3 page anymore but you can also find this fic there*

The Doctor had shut the doors on Asteroid 284996 and done a hop, skip, and a jump back to the controls before the others had fully turned around.

“Right, so, eleventh attempt—”

“Fifteenth,” Graham maintained.

“This next attempt,” she continued regardless, “will be home. Promise this time.”

Yaz was sharing a quick look with both Graham and Ryan. Some kind of silent communication. They were quite good at that.

“Actually, Doctor,” she said, taking two steps up towards the console. “Think we might all want a bit of a rest before heading back.”

“Yeah, there wasn’t much sleep happening at that motel,” Graham added.

“What about you, Ryan?” The Doctor asked.

He shrugged. He was a shrugger, that Ryan. “Could do with some, yeah.”

The Doctor nodded to herself and stepped back from the controls. “Alright then. Sleep first, Sheffield later. Good plan.”

“Right, well, goodnight. Just down this hall here, right Doc?”

“Yep. Pick any room. The TARDIS will have made it for you.”

Not that they were staying. It wasn’t their rooms just as the clothes they’d been borrowing from the TARDIS weren’t their clothes. They weren’t staying. She knew that.

“How’d it do that?” Yaz asked, a curious tilt to her head.

“More of that dimensional engineering, Yaz,” she answered.

The girl shook her head and followed after Graham. Ryan shuffled along behind her as well.

The Doctor called over her shoulder a, “Night, Ryan.”

She heard him stop, and there was a quiet, “Night,” echoed back at her. The Doctor smiled to herself and leaned back over the controls.

She’d study them all night if she had to, just to be sure she got it right tomorrow. Imagining the looks on their faces when they stepped outside back home—

“Thanks for showing us Rosa Parks,” said Ryan suddenly, and she jumped. She’d thought he’d gone off to his not-room. “The person and the asteroid. It was worth it.”

The Doctor spun around, but Ryan had already disappeared down the corridor.

The smile slowly faded from her face. Worth it. She didn’t have to be a genius to know what he’d meant.

Had it been worth it? The constant remarks, the indignities, the slap. The threats on his life that had made her stomach churn and her blood boil.

Her friends were not always safe when they traveled with her. But the harm that had come to Ryan these past two days was different.

She kept going back to that moment, replaying it over and over in her mind. Replaying the different ways time could have diverged.

In one, she intervenes ahead of Yaz, telling the man off instead of deescalating. He calls an officer and the whole lot of them are thrown in jail. Krasko’s plan continues uninterrupted.

In another, she hits the man back. She’s done it before, and it feels just as good — for the moment. The other white men in the area, they react. It becomes a frenzy, a mob, Ryan pushing past Graham to help her only to get overwhelmed by the crowd instead. They’re driven from the town with sticks and rocks, and there’s the light of distant torches approaching—

In the one, the only one that matters now because it is what has happened, her mouth falls open but she is wordless. She watches Yaz assert her authority, watches Graham place himself in front of Ryan, and watches Rosa talk the man down. The Doctor does nothing.

She could kid herself. Say she was simply so preoccupied with the temporal anomalies going on that she hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to react.

But the truth was, in over two-thousand years of traveling, she’d been totally unprepared to act at all.

The Doctor squeezed her eyes shut and let out a pitiful groan. She’d told herself this was a fresh start, a clean break of things for her after so many years of self doubt and recriminations. But her past informed her present just as much as it always had.

She’d been lucky in the past to never come up against that hostile of a presence to one of her friends. The less charitable side of her mind said that luck probably came from the majority of her friends having had an appearance deemed acceptable to previous times in Earth’s history. Had that been random, or a subconscious choice on her own part?

What of her own appearance? She still remembered the advice she’d given a nervous Martha Jones, out on her first official trip to the past.

Just walk about like you own the place. Works for me.

She could kick herself now. Of course it had worked for her- him- them. Pronouns were so confusing. But the invisible truth her past self had failed to acknowledge was that his face alone had granted him the status of one who owned the place whether that was the fifteenth, twenty-first, or seventy-ninth century. That lack of context could have placed Martha in serious danger, the more she thought of it now. Walking about like normal had nearly placed Ryan in danger right before her eyes, and all because of one simple act of kindness he’d tried to perform.

It wasn’t working nearly so well for her anymore, either. She hadn’t missed the way Officer Mason’s eyes had slid from her to Graham every time he had some serious question. How it was Graham, and not her, that he assumed was the authority. The Doctor had grown accustomed to commanding attention wherever she went, but it was only growing clearer to her just how much of that had been attributed to her appearance. She’d taken that for granted.

How many times had the friends she’d asked along complained about the local customs? About being demoted to dinner ladies or plucky girls, and she’d asked them to play along just to avoid ruffling any additional feathers? History was delicate, yes, but how much had she asked the people in her care to sacrifice in deference to it?

Her thoughts returned again and again to those ignorant words she’d spoken so many centuries ago.

Besides, you’d be surprised. Elizabethan England, not so different from your time.

And Montgomery, Alabama was not so different from her new friends’ time either. Only instead of pointing out harmless similarities, she’d led Ryan and Yasmin right into the ugliness those eras shared.

Had it been worth it? Rosa and all those activists, all those people fighting their whole lives for change, would likely say so. Ryan had said it was himself. But the Doctor couldn’t help wishing there was something more she could have done, some other adventure she was sending these wonderful humans home after. They deserved to see the wonders of the universe, but she’d only brought them desolate landscapes and pain.

The Doctor pushed away from the controls and shook out her arms. She didn’t much like all the wallowing this go around. Her mind and body were demanding she do something about it. Without the option to change time, she thought she could try talking instead.

She set off down a corridor at a quick march, trusting the TARDIS to lead her true. In a few minutes, she came to a doorway at the intersection of two corridors and reached out to knock.

“I’m asleep.”

“Don’t sound like it.”

She heard Ryan mutter something and approximately two minutes and twenty-three seconds later his door was open. He wasn’t even dressed for sleep.

“Something the matter? Did we land on another planet?”

“Haven’t landed anywhere yet,” she told him. “Just thought I’d come by if you were still awake.” The Doctor poked her head through the doorway. “This is your room, then? It’s nice.”

It was a large, open space, plenty of room between all the furniture. A couple of lights here and there that weren’t too bright, and the bed looked so soft and inviting it was hard not to just give into the impulse to simply run and jump at it.

“I like it. Yeah. Thanks,” he said.

“Oh, don’t thank me. It’s all the TARDIS,” the Doctor replied. She teetered back and forth on her feet for a few seconds. “Anyway…”

Ryan watched her. He didn’t say much, never forced things to go on. So she couldn’t count on his prodding to force her into saying it. Right then.

The Doctor drew in a breath and then said in a rush, “Ryan, I’m very sorry about the last couple days and it really means a lot to me that you feel it was worth it, but I felt it had to be said. I should have done more for you.”

“That’s okay,” Ryan said, but his eyes were on the floor.

“No, it isn’t.” She stepped up closer, placing herself in his sight-line. Look at that! Shortness did have its advantages. “It isn’t okay because it never was okay. Humanity is amazing, but they have put their own people through so much pain and outrage for centuries for no fault of theirs. And I didn’t help.” She frowned, looking down herself. “I do what I can, but I haven’t done nearly enough.”

She’d avoided it, if anything. Spent time in palaces and amongst leaders instead of with the people they’d subjugated. Flirted with founders of a government that touted freedom as an ideal while punting the issue of slavery down the road for others to fight and die to end.

Donna Noble had been appalled by the Ood and moreover that the Doctor had already known about them. I was busy, she’d told her best friend. But the Doctor hadn’t been, not really. Perhaps the truth was she’d just put up blinders to it the same way the Londoners ignored the labor that went into the cheap clothes they bought.

“One person can’t stop all that,” said Ryan, drawing her out of her thoughts. “Krasko had one thing right. Small actions. And Rosa had to do it.”

That was true. None of her faces could have sat in Rosa’s place. None of them could have changed the world the way she and every other plaintiff in the case to end segregation, every activist in every march, every volunteer to register the voiceless to vote had done.

“So I’m alright with what happened. It had to. That was important.”

She looked back up. “Maybe so, but I don’t want you thinking you’re any less important.”

Ryan didn’t look convinced. “Not like there’s some asteroid floating out there with my name, is there?”

“Not one I’ve heard of yet,” the Doctor said. “There’s still time.”

He shook his head, mouth pulling up at one corner.

“Preserving history is what my people were taught to do, but what I’ve learned in my travels is that history is only as important as the people in it. And I’m glad you’re part of mine,” she told him with a smile.

“So am I,” Ryan replied, and the Doctor blinked. She hadn’t expected that. Truthfully, she’d wondered whether any of them were glad to have met her. It always came as such a shock.

“Well,” she said, hands stuffed in her pockets to avoid the impulse to reach out for a hug. “Suppose I’ll let you sleep now.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

She wheeled about to the door. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you.”

The Doctor looked back once, and they shared a nod. Then she stepped out into the hall and closed the door.

She would miss him. The realization hit her as suddenly as it always did. She would miss all three of them. It didn’t seem to matter if they stayed a day or ten years. Every time they left, she missed them.

“Oh.”

The Doctor looked up at the sound, spotting Graham who had just stopped in his tracks as he rounded the corner.

“Sorry. Were you just?” He pointed to Ryan’s door.

“Think he’ll be alright, Graham.”

Graham nodded. “Yeah, well. He’s a good kid. Grace, um...she raised him well.”

The Doctor looked down and nodded.

“Guess I’ll just...well, goodnight, Doc.”

“Goodnight. Oh, Graham?”

He stopped and turned around. “Yeah?”

“I think you’ll all be alright.”

He smiled, a tight one, but a smile nonetheless. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly as he continued back on his way. The Doctor doubted he heard her.

The Doctor pushed off from Ryan’s door and continued down the opposite direction, back towards the console room. She felt settled now, ready to take on the task of deciphering the controls to get them home.

Nothing about what had happened had changed, yet nevertheless she was assured. The Doctor had led these new, brief friends of hers in amongst some of the worst of humanity — and they’d all proved themselves the best.

[jamr0ck83]

What, Exactly, Have You Done to Help Build a Less Racist America?

So, here it is, the end of November.  I think we can all agree that 2020 was not the year we wanted (although I might argue that it’s not all of us who didn’t deserve it).  Yes, this year has been an absolute mess.  But also, it’s not some grand accident that just happened to befall us.  Everything that has transpired this year has been in the making for years, decades, centuries even.

We are getting rocked by Covid-19 because our healthcare system is so inadequate and predicated upon profit that it’s not at all set up to deal with this situation.  Also, one of the things that’s always been held as a virtue in America is its citizens’ sense of individualism.  Everyone is responsible for their own destiny and has the right to make any and every decision for themselves.  That’s what we’ve told ourselves makes us a great nation.  The problem with that is, in this pandemic scenario, many people then don’t feel obligated to withstand any kind of personal inconvenience to help keep others alive, even if those others are their own family members.  We want what we want when we want it, and we won’t take “no” for answer.  Unfortunately for us, pandemics aren’t really concerned with making sure Americans don’t have to play by the same rules the rest of the people on this planet do, and when viruses come to kill you, they will kill you if you don’t respond appropriately, and there’s no chapter in The Power of Positive Thinking that effectively helps you wish death away.

It’s an election year, which should’ve been a surprise to no one, especially not to those of us who have been counting down to this year since the 2016 Presidential Election.  And let’s be real; this was an awful election year.  Due to the realities (as opposed to promise) of living in a democratic republic, we really only have two viable political parties, and real talk, neither of them are meeting the needs of the people, and that’s definitely not new.  The Democratic Party offered way too many candidates, especially when they had absolutely no intention of letting anyone but Biden secure the nomination.  And it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that they did this.  The Democrats have BEEN riding the wave of appealing to the idealistic and progressive portions of the population for votes and then once those votes are received, their focus is keeping their own jobs.  And not even keeping their jobs for the sake of leading the nation and providing the people with what they need; they just want to keep their jobs. And Trump has spent a lifetime of telling half-truths and outright lies, so there was no scenario where he was going to abandon that to become a “respectable politician” this go-round.  So, his entire campaign was propaganda nonsense, and because all of our mainstream news outlets are so concerned with ratings, they played and replayed and replayed every ridiculous thing he said, which was helpful to no one.  Point being, the way our media corporations are cogs in the wheel of unfettered capitalism, that’s not new at all, either.

And then the #BlackLivesMatter Movement became a thing more than black people were talking about.  And to be clear, the movement itself isn’t new and black people being murdered by police with astronomical frequency isn’t new, but apparently things don’t matter until white people care about them, so this became a huge “aha” moment for many of them.  But again, all of this?  Not new.

My point is that all of these things have been building for some time, and it’s unfortunate that they all decided to implode in the same year, but the implosions were inevitable.  But when it comes to #BlackLivesMatter, it seemed like we had reached a crucial moment back in the spring.  People saw that video of George Floyd and then heard about Ahmaud Arbury and Breonna Taylor, and there seemed to be an urgent desire to get some societal changes made which would include tackling racism.  And a lot of people vowed that this time would be different.  White allies were going to rise up in droves and be the ones to see to it that this world, in which their privilege serves to oppress others, was going to change.  They said, “we’re going to have to be the ones to end racism, and we will.”  And as I recall, black folks were optimistic but skeptical, and there was a sense that many allies were basing their allegiance in their need to make themselves feel better instead of a need to see the humanity of all respected.  And to be fair, many of us black folks tried to warn them not to do this.  “It’s not about your feelings,” we said.  “Basing it on that alone isn’t sustainable,” we said.  But allies assured us they were in it for the long haul this time and would prove it with their actions.  And I, for one, was willing to see how that went.  So, I offered resources where they were needed and provided perspective on some of the issues and then trusted that white people were doing the work.  And this was a mistake.  And I don’t think the failure of most white allies to actually do the work is the mark of people being malicious; I just think they got bored and were ready to move on.  And I think they also saw that this wasn’t going to be as easy as getting everyone to “find common ground”.  And as the work began to require them to do more than post a black square and say “black lives matter” out loud, that became too inconvenient and too uncomfortable.

So now, it’s November.  And white allies, many of you were beside yourselves with shock to see Trump get so many votes, and it was nearly like 2016 all over again.  But what exactly did you perceive had changed since May that would mean less voters would align themselves with the white supremacy antics of the Republican Party?  How did you expect those votes to go from Republican to Democrat when you knew just from talking to your family that they had no intention of voting for Democrats?  What exactly did you think had been accomplished in the struggle to fight racism?  And what were the specific things you did in order to help make this happen?  Here; I will list a few examples of action steps, and you can see which of them you did.

Have you read any books by black authors regarding the history of racism in this country and the ways in which we’ve fought against it in the past?

Have you read anything by black authors regarding the contemporary issues facing Black America like higher unemployment and prison rates and the wealth gap to learn more about the systemic reasons why these problems persist?

Have you watched any documentaries about Black History and/or contemporary black issues like Eyes on the Prize, I Am Not Your Negro, and Central Park 5 by Ken Burns?

Have you arrived at the conclusion that the version of American History you were taught is fraught with grandiose lies promoting white supremacy and basically ignores any black people of prominence who weren’t Dr. King or Rosa Parks?

Have you wondered why it’s those two people that have been chosen as our black heroes by mainstream white culture?

Have you realized that even the version of Dr. King and Rosa Parks that you were taught that painted them as passive and nonthreatening is wholly inaccurate?

Have you checked out any black entertainment that you might have never thought to notice before like:

TV shows such as Living Single (which was ripped off and reworked into the mega hit we know as Friends) and A Different World (which tackled many issues of its day including AIDS, bigotry, and date rape AND had such an impact on the black community that, during its original run, enrollment in HBCUs increased drastically)?

Famous playwrights like Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson?

Famous authors like Colson Whitehead and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie?

Famous poets like Langston Hughes and Nikki Giovanni or even someone more up-and-coming and contemporary like Kai Davis?

Famous artists like Jacob Lawrence and Kehinde Wiley?

Famous musicians like John Coltrane, Earth Wind & Fire, A Tribe Called Quest, and Talib Kweli?

Famous films like Malcolm X, The Hate U Give, and BlacKkKlansman (none of which rely on the overly-played and inaccurate trope of the white savior who ends up diffusing hostile racial conflicts by merely learning to care)?

Have you had any meaningful conversation with friends and family in which you explained the basis and need for the BLM movement and why it’s not a political stance to say that black people should not have to still be fighting to be acknowledged and respected in 2020 AND have you done that without validating any of their bigotry and misconceptions with phrases like “Yes, I agree that both sides are the problem” or “Yes, it’s valid to feel that being pro-western culture does not necessarily mean being pro-white”?

Have you looked inward and really thought about the biases you harbor within yourself, where they came from, and what you can do to re-conceptualize these ideas?

Have you checked on your black friends in these past several months?

Have you realized that you don’t really have any black friends or that you don’t have any black neighbors or that there are no black kids that go to your kids’ schools and see how problematic ALL of those things are?

Have you been aware of all the terrible things that have happened since the death of George Floyd that have traumatized the black community such as the death of Quawan Charles and the fact that the grand jury convened in Kentucky was not even given the option to issue murder indictments against the police officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor?

Have you been following any contemporary black activists like Shaun King, Tamika Mallory, Gary Chambers, and Stacey Abrams who have been doing the legwork of enfranchising black voters, leading protests, and using their voices to lead and denounce systemic racism?

Have you been willing to determine whether white fragility is something you might unknowingly harbor and resolve to change that?

Have you grown concerned that support for BLM has dwindled significantly between the end of May and now, and have you decided to do something about that?

Have you realized that, if you were shocked by how many people STILL voted for Trump in this election, that probably means you’re not as in tune with the prevalence of white supremacy in modern America as you thought you were?

Have you re-examined your base level of respect for the Republican Party after witnessing them spend the last couple of months trying to steal this election and how that was in direct response to the belief that they couldn’t allow too many black votes to be counted because they’d likely be against them, which is not at all the way of a democracy?

Have you maintained the same anger and determination to “be the change” that you felt when you watched that video of George Floyd having the life choked out of him?

Have you finally come to the conclusion that grounding your fire to combat racism in your feelings CANNOT be the way to move forward, because the second you feel better, your desire for change will wane, even if nothing has really improved?

How many of these things can you honestly say you’ve done?  And I don’t ask that as some sort of indictment on your character or to shame you.  I ask because I am being honest and realistic when I tell you that any plan you might have that does not include the majority if not all of these things is not a plan that will work.  There are established methods for being effective allies; nobody is asking you to figure that out on your own.  People have been working to secure the rights of the oppressed for centuries, and it’s pretty certain that you’re NOT going to invent some new way that gets the job done AND allows you the comfort you are used to.  This can’t be like Covid-19 when many Americans assumed the rules of science don’t apply to them because they didn’t want them to.  And you don’t get to sit on this until you feel like playing a more active role is convenient, because people are dying while you make your plans for the holidays.  And maybe that’s a low blow, but I don’t know else to put it.  Black people are not a cause you can keep putting on the back burner because you’re not ready to deal with it.  And obviously no one has the power or ability to make you engage in ways in which you are not comfortable, but if that’s the case, then you need to own that.  And stop acting like racism is some rare occurrence in America that is largely on the run.  IT IS NOT.  So, stop telling black people that lie, because none of us believe it, and it’s insulting to constantly be told that, anyway.  You don’t have to be an ally, but you don’t get to opt out of being one and still claim to be a defender of all humanity.  Either you are someone who believes something is wrong and you want to work to change it, or you are someone who doesn’t care.  There is no middle ground, there are no further considerations to be made.  It’s not hard to decide which of these people you are.  So, which one are you and what are you going to do about it?

Above image from WAM Theatre

[glassceilingbreakers]

Why I Ran: Delaware Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester

Lisa Blunt Rochester was elected to Congress in 2016. Rochester had been a Cabinet member under two Democratic governors, but had never run for office. The death of her husband, Charles Rochester, drove her to enter the race. Before her election, Delaware had never had a woman or a person of color represent the state in Congress.

As a young, young girl, I probably didn't know about women like Rosa Parks. I wasn't that kid who said, "Someday, I want to be in Congress." But I knew my grandmothers, and they were incredible people. My mother's mother worked at a ball-bearing plant. She was a steelworker at a time when it wasn't common to see a woman in that position. Eventually she became a union leader and an activist, trying to stop drugs in her community. (She and her family were pushed out of their neighborhood by drug dealers.) And as I grew up, I was lucky that my first bosses, the ones that really took me under their wings, were very strong women who guided me and pushed me.

But my first foray into government was probably 30 years or so ago as an intern in a congressional office for then-Congressman Tom Carper, who's now our senator. I met him at a town hall meeting. I was in grad school at the time. And by the way, it took me almost 13 years to complete that degree. I had my 18-month-old son on my hip and my daughter in my belly, and I went to this meeting, and he told me that they had internships. I went to Washington and stood on the steps of the Capitol, and I remember feeling like maybe I could come back here.

And then life happened. I started working in government, not as a candidate. A woman named Carmen Nazario offered me a job as her deputy in the [Delaware] Department of Health and Social Services. The department was the largest in the state government and dealt with issues ranging from AIDS to substance abuse to public health. I turned it down not once but twice because I was afraid. She just kept after me to say, "You can do it." Eventually I took the position and I loved it.

I heard that there was an opening to be secretary of labor, but I hadn't been asked to do it. I went to the governor and said, "You should be considering me for this. Here are the reasons." I felt I could do the job and I had this mentor who helped prepare me for it.

I was married for 20 years and got divorced. And then I met Charles. We got married in 2006. I quit my job in Delaware. I sold my house, my car. I moved to China to live there with him because he was working overseas. It was the opportunity of a lifetime; who gets to do that with their soul mate? We traveled all over the world. We just lived very much in the moment. And he taught me a lot. He was a big global leader, but he was so humble. This was the kind of guy who would not even step on a bug. He would take it outside. In 2014, he ruptured his Achilles tendon and blood clots went to his heart and lungs. He passed away unexpectedly at the age of 52.

When he passed, I was shattered. I was grateful that I had that kind of love, but I was just so devastated. For that whole year after, I was in the darkest place. I was on autopilot. I know I'm really fortunate. I have great people around me. My family is so strong, so supportive. But my faith was shaken when Charles passed. And I didn't rise above it all. I didn't reach out to people. I went dark. For Christmas, I went away. For my birthday, I didn't want a cake. I went to Iceland. I was so dark that I wanted to be in a dark place. I tried to read all these books. I tried to take people's advice. But really, I just wanted anything that would help me get up the next day.

And then, one day, I remember going to the supermarket here in Delaware, and there was a family in front of me, a father and a couple of kids. He had put back a bunch of grapes because they were five dollars a bunch and he couldn't afford it. It was this turning point. I just realized that I wasn't the only one struggling. I'm blessed. I have a house. I have great kids. I suffered a loss, but there are a lot of people who are suffering—loss of their jobs, loss of their homes, loss of a child to gun violence.

I felt compelled to run. I had never run for office before. It was a six-way primary, myself and five men. I don't think people thought I was going to win. I wasn't an Ivy League–educated lawyer, for one thing. But I had experience in government and I had heart and I had faith. My life changed, and I realized I had nothing to lose and everything to give.

And truly the reason why I remember that grape story is because it was the moment that everything changed for me. It was like a light went off: "We're in this together." And campaigning helped me grieve, in a way. I can't tell you how much it helped me to walk in the shoes of other people. When I won and took the oath, I realized that running gave me my joy back. I now know some of the pain that others are going through, but at the same time, I have hope still. I still have hope. My daughter said to me, "You know, Mom, it's funny you picked the highest thing to reach for at your lowest point."

There were a lot of times where it was tough, doing debates, raising money, even just physically covering as much of the state as I could. It's a lot. So I developed some strategies. I have this app that gives a Scripture of the day each morning. During the race, that gave me focus. Some days I would try to meditate. Other times I did yoga. And I have a set of mantras that I wrote down. You know those cardboard inserts in pantyhose? One day, I just wrote down five different bullet points on one of those: "Good morning, Lisa." "I love you." "You can accomplish anything." And sometimes I would videotape myself. The truth is I didn't want to forget the pain, how hard it is to run, how sad I was sometimes. It's like after childbirth, you get that beautiful baby and you forget how bad it was! I wanted to remember because it makes the service that much sweeter. I know what went into it.

After the oath, former Vice President Joe Biden surprised me at my reception. Our Delaware man! We love him so much in Delaware. He invited me to ride with him on the train back home from the presidential inauguration a few weeks later. We jumped into the motorcade when it was over. And on the way to the train, he grabbed my hand. It was very special. He obviously has a lot of advice to share.

And Delaware is a special place. After an election, all the candidates for governor, for senate, for the congressional races ride in horse-drawn carriages in a parade and then we bury the hatchet. Really, we bury it. The party leaders all bury a real hatchet and put sand over it. We call it Returns Day. I have to bring a little of that to Congress.

I have legislative policies that I'm interested in—equal pay for equal work, child care, paid leave, college affordability, education, agriculture. But outside of that, I feel it's critical that people be passionate and feel invested in politics. I want to see women run for office at all levels. And if you can't run, then get involved somehow. I feel we need to make a statement and I need to make a statement, as a representative, that we can continue the promise of President Obama, that there is still hope. We need to say to everyone around the world as we did at the Women's March, "See me. Hear me. I'm here. I have a voice."

[sarahburness]

Our Future Is Bright—Why Worry?

“How much pain has cost us the evils that have never happened.” ~Thomas Jefferson

When my friend said she worried about the kind of future world her grandkids would live in, her daughter and I stared in disbelief.

I hear it often, the concern for the future. There’s concern for many things, from the Earth itself to the concern for the lack of community and the implications of generations reared in a world where social media appears to be the new community.

My friend’s daughter is quite a bit younger than me, but our kids are the same age—she came to motherhood early, I came late. Over the years I have watched as this young lady has absolutely blossomed as a mother and as a member of our society.

Her conversations are intelligent, witty, and insightful, but most precious of all is her ability to ask questions that make people think, to question their beliefs, without creating a defensive reaction. It’s a beautiful thing. As her mum was questioning what the future would be like, my first thought was “with people like this in our younger generation, why worry?”

The Earth right now, our people and our society, are a reflection of yesterday’s actions.

Given our actions are driven by our thoughts, I’m really not in the least worried about our future.

Sure, I can browse the internet, watch media, or walk out my front door and spend time observing the kind of behaviors that created the world we live in today. In fact, it's fair to say there are many things we can look at and feel utterly horrified about.

The fact that we do is the catalyst for change.

There are the people like you and me, becoming more conscious of our actions, becoming more conscious of the thoughts that drive our actions. And there are our younger generations, born with more wisdom and insights into tomorrow than any amount of worry would give them credit for.

A few years ago I watched an Australian drama series called Puberty Blues, set in the 1970’s, but played by actors born in the millennium. Having grown up in the 1970’s, I could relate to a lot of the experiences the young characters were going through.

However, the most striking thing was an interview with the actors that I read; they were being asked how different their characters’ experiences were from their own.

The boys felt that their 1970’s counterparts suppressed a lot of their feelings, masquerading as macho men. One commented how common it is these days for male friends to hug each other, which would have been unheard of then. The girls commented on how subservient to whims of the boys their counterparts were, something they themselves couldn’t contemplate.

I was astounded, and rather reassured. In just thirty years, society has apparently evolved more than it has in hundreds (if not thousands) of years. The patriarchal ego has been called out; the feminine traits within us all rising to create more of a balance it seems.

Then there are the likes of Boyan Slat that I saw on a social media site a few years ago, the young Dutch student who invented a way to clean up our ocean’s plastics and is now trialing it, and Melati and Isabel Wijsen, sisters from Bali that I found via Google, who founded Bye Bye Plastic Bags in 2013 and now the entire island of Bali is declared free of plastic bags—with the whole of Indonesia planning to ban all plastic bags by 2021.

You only need to search “young people changing the world” or similar and you will find countless examples, ranging from environmental to humanitarian. It made my heart soar.

Yet I need not look even that far; there are my own kids, and my friend’s granddaughter who were all happily playing together as we had this conversation. These are really enlightened kids.

Just a month or so ago I had been reading a kids’ book about people who changed the world. This particular story was about Martin Luther King Jr. My daughter’s eyes went wide as she took it all in. I could see her wrangling with the injustice of it all and saw a look of what I’d describe as determination appear on her face.

One of her friends had been reading another children’s book about women who changed the world, and she knew the story of Rosa Parks. I listened to them discuss it in depth as we did a scavenger hunt around a local nature reserve last week.

These two seven-year-olds and an eight-year old friend, along with my younger child who, despite bouncing around the room at the time we had read Martin Luther King Jr.’s story, had obviously taken in more details than I would have given her credit for.

Future activists, these kids. Not simply on the topic of equality, but they are informed about environmental issues, diet, money, healthcare, education, politics, and government. This isn’t just because they grow up in homes where we take an interest in these things; it’s because society at large is starting to take an interest.

They are assessing this world and seeing things they like and dislike, and have the energy and sense of self-worth to believe things can be different. They know they have choices in the way they do things, and it seems likely they will.

Our kids may not go out and start a movement, but their thinking will lead to actions that change the world.

Tonight when we watched Disney’s WALL-E movie about a future Earth that was simply a huge garbage dump that humans had abandoned 700 years before, the kids asked so many questions about it, I am sure they came away with a strong resolve that was not going to be the kind of future they live in.

Sure, these are just my kids and my friends. However, I see a world full of people just like that, and we are certainly not leading lights when it comes to most of this thinking; we are simply following because it resonates and makes sense.

In the last decade alone, the amount of choice on supermarket shelves has increased amazingly to incorporate environmentally friendly, free range, and organic produce. Many more independent, locally owned and operated alternatives have sprung up too. Even produce sold for cash along the roadside sports signs such as “spray free.”

Pharmacies now stock many more alternative and complementary healthcare products. Even doctors are starting to recommend a broader context for treatment than the pharmaceuticals at their disposal. The world is a changing place.

It really was surreal to listen to someone who has awareness of all these issues express worry, at the same time sitting there with future generations who are so overwhelmingly wise, empowered, and enlightened.

To be fair, it’s crazy to worry about anything. No amount of worry ever solved anything.

The worry was more of a habit. One I am not immune to myself, on a myriad of fronts, but mainly when it comes to my personal behaviors and achievements. In other people and in the future of this planet, I have every faith.

In the hands of our next generation, I’d say the future looks absolutely bright.

About Shona Keachie

Shona teaches by the power of example how to find our inner truth among the often harried day-to-day practicalities of life. She regularly provides people from all walks of life with a fresh perspective on anything they feel stuck with and is happy for you to get in touch. To follow her blog click here.

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