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RBG: 365 Ruthless Days Later

How to honor Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

By Kymi ParkerPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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RBG: 365 Ruthless Days Later
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

On the afternoon of September 18 2020, it seemed the world stopped spinning.

A collective sob rang out from women, queers, and people fighting for social justice across the country. A retch from our chests mirroring the similar collective purge that happened on November 8th, 2016 when the election results were read.

Fear.

The emotion without reason, without structure.

Just anxiety and overwhelm.

Racing heart, racing thoughts.

It's a fear that in the past 365 days has not been unfounded.

The six person conservative bloc makes up two thirds of the Supreme Court; a staggering majority that has been splitting cases of human rights between ideologies, subsequently passing decisions with shocking effects on the freedom to exist with bodily autonomy. In April, Mississippi v. Jones upheld a judge's right to sentence a juvenile to life in prison, regardless of ability to be rehabilitated. In June, employers rights were upheld over farmers' rights to unionize, allowing union reps to be banned from farms (Cedarpoint Nursery v. Hassid) And now,

the 5 to 4 ruling on Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, the decision to uphold Texas' six week abortion ban. Advocates for reproductive rights were bracing for this blow. A proverbial gutting of the landmark Roe V. Wade decision, it sets the precedent to shake the already tenuous ground that reproductive freedom sits on. Article after article has popped up, the same old song and dance of elderly white men making decisions about the bodies of women, however with one very different addition.

Amy Coney Barrett.

The first woman on the Supreme Court to disavow abortion. The heels that stepped over Ginsburg's footprints and took her place on the bench. A cruel joke from a party that despised the 87 year old legend of human rights advocacy. Proof that you can overturn a phenomenal woman's legacy, but if you want to make it really hurt, have another woman do it for you.

Seeing a woman's face on that side of the fight is discouraging and harmful; a way to make us feel more alone and out of control. The most fearsome enemy is the one that looks like you, and with her blank smile and feminine frame on the side of the oppressor, the oppressor feels like they have won. And the point was made. The person integral to women's rights and the last 25 years of SCOTUS rulings- the woman whose dying wish was to not be replaced by the 45th administration- was gone, as was any feigned respect for her.

This was a new era,

A Ruthless era.

In this era, we are seeing the sure and steady erosion of Women's rights and Queer rights; chunks being taken out of voter's rights; claw marks in immigrant rights. We are seeing the conservatism that the Trump right wished to see in the world; the dystopian nightmare that Liberals and leftists alike had feared.

Perhaps more terrifying, however, is the activist fatigue we are seeing on every level. After the exhausting 2020 summer of revolution, we have spent yet another year being bombarded with policies that do not provide for us and instead put us in the firing line of the covid outbreak; policies that continue to disproportionately attack BIPOC communities. We are seeing collective disappointment in the lack of action from the, now flipped, government; showing us that no matter the party in power, they are still hopelessly out of touch with what we need and want as people. We are seeing a lack of action against those who are abusive towards the working class. We are seeing a Democratic party, president and vice president included, that will not stand up to big business or even their Republican counterparts.

We are seeing the emptiness of the promises made to us during the 2020 election.

Many of us were under the impression that once we traded administrations, we'd trade conditions.

We were wrong.

And so now, we must implement the ultimate lesson taught to us by Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Never tire. Never give up. Never say die.

As the fatigue sets in and the trauma takes hold, we must hold on with white knuckles; not get tossed into the whirlpool. We must work, we must rest, and then we must work again; a collective choral round of activism and protest as we fight for what we need.

What we deserve.

With strikes on major companies like Nabisco and FritoLay, we are watching the people continue to rise against the union busting conglomerates that see us as bodies with numbers, not people deserving of humanity.

We are seeing a collective push, but we must continue, we must ramp up to the levels we saw last summer. As our anxiety mounts, threatening to paralyze us, we must take action; action is the antidote for anxiety.

We must do what RBG did and fight until the very end.

Because that's what is needed.

And that's the greatest lesson an 87 year old firecracker taught us.

To never tire. To never give up. To never say die.

May her memory be a revolution.

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About the Creator

Kymi Parker

Sky watching, mush hearted, wordsmith.

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