Reflecting, Preparing, and Building Joy for the Year Ahead
A WORD FROM IRIS
It has been an intense year. We watched genocides unfold on our screens, and occupied college campuses. We lost beloved luminaries, and celebrated Native Land Back and Black reparations victories. We experienced Kamala Harris’s whirlwind presidential campaign, and now we watch Donald Trump’s deplorable return.
As we close out 2024, we have a sense of what may lie ahead. If right-wing policy package, Project 2025, continues as planned, our day-to-day lives, families, communities, and livelihoods will suffer deeply.
For now, I am living in the moment. I’m practicing gratitude – for my life, my family, and the lessons both bring me – and storing reserves of joy. Because I know I am going to have to fight, and I know I am going to want to fight.
There are only a few weeks left until the installation of Trump’s government. Just as there is a time for joy and a time for preparation, there is also a difference between preparedness and fear. We can take these threats seriously without freezing or falling into despair. As writer and activist Nikki Giovanni once said: If we don't like the world we're living in, change it. And if we can't change it, we change ourselves. We can do something…. If you can't win today, you can win tomorrow.
LESSONS TO CARRY FORWARD
Social Justice Synergy has seen a lot of infighting throughout the social justice movement space over recent years. The underlying causes of these conflicts are valid in many cases, but we have also seen how this infighting weakens the work. There will come a time to settle grievances and build bridges over our differences. Until then, here are a few lessons to focus on and carry forward:
Build community. It’s a common phrase, but let’s lean into its simplest meaning. Start within your family and community to identify points of connection. What priorities do you share? Meet your neighbors if you haven’t. What skills, knowledge, and needs exist around you? Be ready to give, and be ready to receive, too.
Practice class solidarity. We are all closer to poverty, disenfranchisement, and marginalization than we are to becoming part of the ruling class. This fact unites us across political identity, faith, age, ability, gender, sexuality, and proximity to whiteness. We’re watching this solidarity play out in the public reaction to the assassination of a UnitedHealthcare executive; folks from all walks of life are identifying with how our capitalistic healthcare system could push a person to extremes. This isn’t a call to extremism, but do consider building ties with communities who are resisting the same systems of oppression as you – even if their reasons and methods are not the same as yours.
Keep doing the work. Project 2025 is already underway; we see the hits to reproductive healthcare, early attacks on public education, and the quiet withdrawal of DEI roles, funding, and initiatives (in both public and private sectors). These efforts are being deliberately attacked and becoming less popular in mainstream spaces, but the work continues in less-visible ways among those who believe in freedom. If you are directly involved in socio-political work of any kind, know that you are not alone and your resistance is still needed. Keep centering justice in all that you do. It may feel small, but your actions matter more than ever.
Celebrate our wins and prioritize our joy. Our organizations are worried about saying and doing the wrong thing, or losing the funding they need to support their communities. Our folks with the identities most subject to oppression are fearful for their safety, health, and the fates of their loved ones. Still, we are powerful. Radical joy is a necessary ingredient for liberation work, so allow yourself to be inspired and excited about the progress we make. Cultivate personal and communal joy, and celebrate it wherever it shows up.