When the going gets tough...
On newsletter burn out, James Baldwin, and beginning again.
In this post: We are all experiencing some type of burn out as we emerge with universal pandemic PTSF whilst facing the possibility of WW#3 Here is some hope for our weary souls.
Last week: An opinion piece by Not Safe for School's Intern Abs on the FL department of education, critical race theory, and social-emotional learning.
Next week: As a lesbian, I don't need to worry about getting knocked up at the wrong time and place but I am still furious.
Hi folks,
I'm gonna be real with y'all: for the past few months, between pitching a nonfiction book about white supremacy in education (cringe and yawn), building up my client roster for dev-editing (which actually has been really fun; if you’re looking for a dev editor to finish an article, check out my services list), and a few more projects (ok fine, a podcast) this N.S.F.S. newsletter has felt like the bottom of my priorities. For that, I offer my humble apologies to y’all!
But! I think we are all experiencing some form of burnout. It's been hard to summon a fuck to give about much, for all of us, as we emerge with a universalized pandemic PTSD to face the possibility of WWIII (and the reality that we care way more about Ukraine than we ever did Syria...)
Further, education news in the U.S (at least) remains as bleak as it was during the Trump-DeVoss era of error: check out last week's post about the dumb-ass shit Florida's spearheading. (Read NSFS’s March statement on Florida’s Don’t Say Gay Bill here).
Despite this (or is it because of it?) Not Safe for School remains the medium through which I get to write most freely, and right now, my faithful intern Abs and I are devising a way of being both a blog and a newsletter.
Some hope for our weary-ass souls: Here’s why I’m deciding to Begin Again (and so should you)
“When the dream was slaughtered and all that love and labor seemed to have come to nothing, we scattered…We knew where we had been, what we tried to do, who had cracked, gone mad, died, or been murdered around us. Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again.” - James Baldwin
The thing I love most about James Baldwin's cutting cynicism was that it was based, fundamentally, in a profound hope for a better future. This type of hope is what we all need, because it's clear-eyed and stripped of any romantic nostalga.
Quote from: “Begin Again by Eddie Glaude: James Baldwin as a Man for our time” by Gail Pico for The Charity Report: November 30, 2020.
Next week, I’ll talk about the crisis facing education: teachers walking out in record numbers, and how we educators are canaries in the coal mine.
In solidarity,
Allison
What I’m (re) reading:
“We Need to Begin Again: In the midst of a moral reckoning, Americas need a third founding,” by Eddie S. Glaude Jr in The Atlantic.
Glaude writes: “[James Baldwin] wrote in the epilogue to No Name in the Street: “An old world is dying, and a new one, kicking in the belly of its mother, time, announces that it is ready to be born. This birth will not be easy, and many of us are doomed to discover that we are exceedingly clumsy midwives. No matter, so long as we accept that our responsibility is to the newborn: the acceptance of responsibility contains the key.” That was in 1972. The labor has been long and hard, and the new world has yet to be born. We are now in our aftertimes, but responsibility has not been lost. Whatever happens next is up to us.”
(If you’re looking for a longer read, I highly recommend Glaude’s book Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own.
Similar Posts about Activism in Education:
What the Republicans have used to fear-monger and rabble-rouse whites naturally signals what I’d like to take as a moment of hope for the U.S: the more we educate all people, most especially Black and peoples of color, the brighter our collective futures will be.