Non-being, i.e., distance from society — social distance — is the very heritage of the oppressed. Which means to the oppressor, social distance is a … - Amanda Gorman

Non-being, i.e., distance from society, social distance is the very heritage of the oppressed.

Which means to the oppressor that social distance is a humiliation.

It is to be something less than free, or worse, someone less than white.

Again, language matters.
Children have been taught-
America: without her, democracy fails.
But the truth is:
America without her democracy fails.

We wrap our arms around ourselves, as if we can possibly hold the whole of who we are within us — everything that makes us this unearthly speck we are. Perhaps tomorrow cannot wait to be today.

In this one life, we, like our joy, are fleeting but certain, abstract & absolute, ghosts who glow & glow.

Writing, truth-telling to one another, is an act of hope-making when hope is hardest found.