What do we have that they should want? We have a wall to work upon

[sovay]

For the first day of summer proper, I had lobster and ice cream. I mended two out of my three pairs of jeans. I baked a lemon cake for the chorus potluck tomorrow. I bought a tank top on sale. I passed out on a couch for an hour in the evening because I had slept maybe two hours the previous night.

I do not know what to do about the planned mass roundup of immigrant families, obscenely described by ICE as a "family op." [ETA: As of this evening, the roundup has been delayed. May it stay so and may there be no advantage to the White House from the threat of it.] I do not know what to do about children tortured, American concentration camps. I already have a senator whom I call to express support of her unwavering opposition to these monstrous policies (which makes a nice change from my governor whom I call to yell at about everything) and I donate when I can to RAICES and I am feeling trapped by the limitations on my finances and my physical capacities which make it difficult enough already to keep myself alive, but what is the use of being alive if I can do nothing for anyone else? It feels like being cornered into complicity, as if I should be expected to raise my hands and say not I didn't know but so what could I have done? I want to know what to do from where I am, which feels terribly far from any levers of power. Fretting is just thoughts and prayers, secular edition.

Comments

[a_reasonable_man]

I keep thinking of what the Timothy Gilbert wrote, in a public letter, after Congress enacted the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Gilbert is not well remembered today, but he was an important figure in Boston, where he lived, at No. 2 Beach Street. A devout Baptist, he became wealthy as a piano manufacturer and endowed the Tremont Temple, which still stands. He was also a committed abolitionist. Part of his letter reads as follows:

"My opinion ... may have little weight with those who ... [support this infamous law], but may help sustain the sinking spirit of some poor disconsolate one, who, having fled the land of the oppressors, is anxiously looking to see if there is any one who will give him a cheering look, or a kind reception ....
"Allow me to say to such an one, that if pursued ... and every other door in Boston is shut against him, there is a door that will be open at No. 2 Beach Street, and fear of fines and imprisonment will be ineffectual when the pursuer demands his victim. If [the pursuer] enters ... it will be at his peril. I am opposed to war, and all the spirit of war ... but I should resist the pursuer, and not allow him to enter my dwelling until he was able to tread me under his feet."

[sovay]

I am opposed to war, and all the spirit of war ... but I should resist the pursuer, and not allow him to enter my dwelling until he was able to tread me under his feet.

That's a good thing to say. I'm glad he lived up to it. I had not heard of him.