Opening Notes for
Pomona College Women's Union
I expect so much more from you.
You were born cable ready.
You do not face the obstacles of learning technology or
learning that the earth is small or
that we are all in this together.
I trust you and your decisions about your body ~
to ink, to pierce, to share it with others.
But I need you to demand your autonomy, demand education,
demand healthcare and reproductive choices.
I need you to demand the right to say NO.
You are the elite.
You do not spend 65% of your day carrying water,
you are not at a sewing machine making running shoes,
you are not forced to marry,
you are not barred from school during your period.
You survived infancy, you have agency.
I expect so much more from you and the vote is the least of it.
I expect you to consider every oppressed individual as
a complex integrated human being and not see a designation (like race, SO, GI, religion).
But rather to see that the unity lies in the power cycle.
I expect you to see that anything you do to chip away
at the imbalance of power is your service to everyone.
I expect you to move from I want MY RIGHTS to I want equality.
Something extraordinary is happening at this time, while you are alive. This is it.
Something is bubbling up in numbers that cannot be ignored.
It is global, not only geographically but across the population, across issues, across borders.
It is time to unite, to find one another, to realize our similarities and
to see clearly that those who hold power are a minority that travels dark alleys.
It is time for new tactics, a new language to manage the unfolding of equality.
It is time for the idea to be more important than one charismatic leader.
It is time to care more about meaning than who said it.
Truth will survive by its own special force,
beyond a rarefied body of legislators in a State House
Now that there is a global conversation, the truth will shake out.
We have a common intuition and hear what sounds right and
what sounds insincere, manipulated, even invented.
There is something coalescing that has the same chant, tone, cadence ~
Arab Spring, Occupy, Slutwalk, Women Unite, Travon Martin protests, Keystone
People are finding what binds them in one simple phrase ~ Enough is Enough.
I don’t care what specific minority you currently represent,
the fact is you belong to all of the them.
It is time to say, enough is enough.
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