Your Silence Will Not Protect You

“Your silence will not protect you.” –Audre Lorde, The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action  

December arrives the day after tomorrow with all its terrible darkness and harsh beauty. With its mood of endings, finish lines, and even small deaths—at least in the metaphorical sense—as one year gives way to another, leaving old things to fall away and new things to emerge. By December, we are already beginning to pull away from the curb of 2022, and therefore able to see our own past selves in the rearview mirror, standing on the boulevard confused and perhaps a little melancholy, but with that determined set of the jaw signaling the will to march forward into the uncertain future with an equal mix of grit and hope.

May we also march with a resolve to leave our silence behind, along with the false belief that it wi…