In the face of hate, I will love

It’s Sunday ✨

The week — this week from hell — is coming to a close. And it’s hard to find relief, knowing what awaits us in the US and across the globe, now that Trump and Vance and their evil cronies have been handed the reins of power. I’m going to be talking a bit about the repercussions of this week in this newsletter, and it is bleak; but I’m also going to talk about fighting back and how, through it all, I still have hope.

That flame of hope that lives inside me hasn’t been stamped out yet. Because I believe in the power of community, of those of us who will be and have been oppressed coming together in solidarity and rage and love to overpower the forces of hate.

The point isn’t to minimize how terrifying things are, here in the US and across the world in Gaza and Sudan and the Congo and Ukraine and every other country where right-wing grifters and haters will get a boost. The point is to say — through the terror, we will fight, we will live, and we will fucking thrive in ways they cannot imagine, ways that will make them sick, because this is not the timeline in which they win.

It cannot be.

From the heart 💗

On hatred of women

I’m not going to share a screenshot or link to the tweet or video that curdled my stomach this week. But I bet you’ve all seen it, too, or heard of men and boys — children! — chanting the refrain to women and girls this week. It’s a gross play on “my body my choice” that implies rape, loss of agency, lack of control over the very sinews, bones, organs that belong to us.

It’s a symptom of the deep-rooted, terrifying, misogynistic hatred of women that runs bone-deep in this country1. That hate has been there, but this week seems to have unlocked it in a visceral way. Which makes sense, I mean — we voted a rapist to the presidency. His vice president has spoken quite clearly about his view that women’s purpose is to breed and bear children and nothing more. Of course regular Joe Schmoes are taking that victory as a rubber-stamping of their own hatred and misogyny.

This week as I watched the video and saw the tweets roll in, I felt so sick to my stomach it made my head spin. And then, underneath the terror and sorrow, came the rage and the fighting instinct. The urge to protect not just myself but every woman around me.

And it’s a little scary, to be honest, to write about it. But I’m doing it because the way they will defeat us is if we stay silent and don’t fight for and with each other. Like I said above, community is our way out of this — not individualism and self-isolation.

Hate is powerful, but I’ll die before I believe it’s more powerful than love. So let them hate us; we will love us, and we will protect us, and we will fight for us.

And you know what? This is where I mention that I’m aware that more than half of white women who voted did so for Trump. I was dismayed that the percentage of his voters hadn’t gone down since 2016, and a little gobsmacked. Because white women, our proximity to white man’s power will not protect us. And even if it did? We are worth nothing if we abandon those more marginalized than we are to protect our own sorry asses.

I plan to move forward in love and rage and with a fight burning inside of me. But I know that I’m not alone in this. I’m going to channel that fire — to nurture those around me, to support the organizers who’ve been in this fight longer and have the knowledge of how to go about it, to step in when I see injustice. The only way out is through, and the best way to get through is to do it together.

From the camera roll 📸

A throwback to my favorite place, Miramare

From the page ✍️

Writing in times of horror

This week has been tough on my writing practice. It wasn’t until yesterday afternoon that I was finally able to put some words on the page — 500 of them, to be exact. What I have done, though, is read, and in reading I’ve found a renewed commitment to my own writing.

Writing books cannot be my only form of activism, but making art is a way of fighting back.

For marginalized authors, our stories will always be political, because our existence is politicized. This is true no matter how fluffy, or cozy, or “low-stakes” our stories are; the second the characters have an oppressed identity, the story becomes political. Just existing as, say, a sapphic couple, or a Black teenager in a contemporary story, or a disabled sword-wielding heroine, is a stance. There are those who would erase us from existence and from the record, so any chance we have to say “no, we are here” is powerful.

It’s scary, too. Especially as we’ve already seen the effects of mounting challenges to diverse books, and authors have lost income from canceled school visits, and librarians and educators are receiving death threats. All this, with a Democrat for president. So speaking up and speaking out — it can have a cost.

Which is to say — some might not be willing to pay the price for writing those stories. I try not to judge them, because I don’t know their circumstances. I don’t know who they are, who they have to provide for and protect, what their lives look like.

But I can write stories that make bigots uncomfortable. I can tell the truth about life as a queer woman in America, as a disabled woman in a country whose healthcare system is…not designed to take care of us.

I will use my words and my stories to fight back.

From the shelf 📚

If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come2, by Jen St. Jude

It’s been over a year, almost two years, since I read If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come, Jen St. Jude’s incredible debut YA novel about an asteroid racing toward Earth and one girl who finds the strength to live and love in the face of impending doom. But it’s one I want to recommend today because, well…”in the face of impending doom” feels apt.

This book rewired my brain and changed the way I think about life — and death. It reminded me that courage is breathtaking, that living one’s truth is courageous, and that sometimes, the most powerful thing to do is to just keep moving forward.

The book starts as Avery, the main character, is planning to die by suicide when news breaks that an asteroid3 is going to hit the earth in nine days. The rest of the book flips between Avery’s past and Avery’s race to find her family and best friend Cass to make the most of their remaining time. For a book about the end of the world, it’s one of the most hopeful ones I’ve ever read. It’s exactly the kind of book I want to write — one that is brilliant and emotional and makes you want to THRIVE and by thrive I mean fight back.

You should buy it! It’s so good, I promise!

Alla prossima 👋

Listen, I know a lot of attention has been paid to the US this week, both by the world and on my personal account. But I will not forget that US citizens are not the only ones who are suffering or will suffer. I will not forget that Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed from their land as Israel warns them they cannot return to North Gaza. I will not forget that American imperialism and commerce stretches far and wide and affects countless lives in the global south and all across the world.

I don’t have money at the moment to donate to mutual aid orgs here or abroad. All I have right now is my voice, which I am lifting here. I hope to do more in the future. I hope to have more to give, a bigger impact to make. For now, I will be one of those voices in your ear4 whispering that we cannot let down Palestinians in this moment. We cannot abandon them because of our own grief.

I hope that you each find something to cling to this week, find joy in the sorrow, a spot of delight and comfort.

— Karis xoxo