I believe in bodies.

No idea who Naomi Klein is? Doesn’t mean I don’t love seeing you in the thick of that climate rally. Never worked an hourly wage day in your life? I still appreciate the hell out of your labor rights retweets. And on and on unto pure unadulterated self-loving slacktivism.

For activism to achieve its most important goal — effecting actual change — it has to be inclusive. And as someone who came out of the womb caring about causes, I’ve always known the best way forward was together, en masse, from the people taking to the streets to the ones evolving institutions from the inside out.

But I find myself in the wake of this most recent miscarriage of justice — or sidestepping of justice, better put, as not indicting the man who precipitated Eric Garner’s homicide via illegal chokehold means crime and punishment were never even at issue — at something of a loss.

What a hard few days it’s been.

For some—the scores of people who thronged New York City’s Times Square, stopped traffic on a Los Angeles freeway, and more—Twitter’s #NoJustice hashtag says all that needs saying about the shooting death of Trayvon Martin on a rainy night in a gated Florida community more than a year ago. For those who saw in George Zimmerman a man unfairly labeled “racist” and worse for trying, however imperfectly, to keep his community safe, it may seem Zimmerman’s been even more vilified in the wake of his acquittal than he ever was on trial. And for the American justice system itself, well—no one will ever call this its finest hour.

But there’s one group that stands to gain something crucial from all this sadness...

Nadira Angelina Hira

Nadira Angelina Hira

Blog

Nadira Angelina Hira

Trayvon Martin, Generation Y, and the Myth of 'Colorblindness'

Nadira Angelina Hira