When the waters aren’t rolling down.

I don’t know what to say about the past few weeks. The gutting of the Voting Rights Act. Awful, almost unbelievable successful attempts to restrict reproductive health in Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas. Then the verdict of the George Zimmerman trial last night.

Some of these issues affect me very directly (I am moving to Ohio soon, and I have a uterus and wanted to have children in the next few years, so losing access to certain types of reproductive health was devastating). In other areas I have the privilege to never have to worry about my right to vote being taken away, or about my future children facing a similar fate to Trayvon Martin. But I mourn with those who mourn.

God, I don’t even have words anymore. I’m jumping between furiously angry and hopelessly sad. All the blatant reminders that not everyone gets to be fully human, from Texas banning protestors from carrying tampons to white folks responding to the Zimmerman verdict with “hallelujah.” All the hard, hard work everyone did that now feels like it was for nothing (though I have to believe, deep down, that good will ultimately come of it).

What can I say when justice seems dammed up by racism and misogyny? By white supremacy, patriarchy, and attempts to control the lives and bodies of those who are seen as “other?”

I have no words, only,

God have mercy.

God have mercy.

God have mercy.