Am I Doing Enough?

Thoughts on the Roles We Play within the Battles of Today

Lately I’ve been fighting a heightened sense of powerlessness. Unwanted emotions of not being or doing enough keeps me in a continuous state of questioning. More than ever before, I’ve been pondering my purpose in life. Both as an artist and as a man. Most of these thoughts relish in the realm of social, political and spiritual warfare, where I think about the role I’m playing in the ongoing battles against tyranny and oppression. 

I try my best to think critically. Staying up to date with global events via podcasts, daily columns, newsletters, literature and more has its own personal benefits for individual knowledge. But that's just not cutting it for me anymore. Simply speaking and writing about the dark forces we face has left me anxious, and starving for more solutions. Answers to issues that can truly make a difference, like feeding families overseas or sheltering and protecting beautifully hard-working people who are being hunted by ICE right here at home. That’s the kind of change I yearn for now, which seems beyond far fetched from the comfort of my sofa as I write this.  

Witnessing National Guard forces descend upon peaceful protests throughout Los Angeles, executively summoned by America’s peckerwooded spineless imbecile of a president, is a harrowing scene far too familiar. At this point, hundreds of LA residents have been arrested for both attending protests as well as being caught outside past the mandated curfew time placed on the city’s downtown district. 

By now most of you have seen clips captured from one lens or another displaying footage from various scenes throughout the city. The way that vantage points are utilized for polarization and division is still one of the most striking aspects of American media coverage. I’m not surprised by the way right-wing publications, tv programs, and fans are utilizing verbiage like insurrectionists, criminals, terrorists and killers to describe the people protesting. 

The irony in people displaying true kinship, dignity, and valor, only to then be labeled as the villains would be comical had there not been lives at stake. But when families are being unlawfully and unjustifiably torn apart for the sake of malicious tropes about their contributions, the color of their brown skin, and a hate-filled white supremacist agenda to revert the country back to an imaginary time where everything was great, nothing is amusing anymore. 

When I think about the roles we play as adults living in a world on fire, I find myself finding more questions to ask rather than solutions to sketch. 

• What can I do to contribute outside of conversing, writing and creating?

• Are these conversations we’re having reaching the right people? Are the words we write being retained in the hearts and minds of our audiences? 

• Are the funds we’re sending really making a difference? Feeding anyone? Supplying clothing & medicine?  

• What does an actual solution look like? I.e., a permanent ceasefire/peace deal - then total rebuild in Gaza? An end to starvation, displacement and civil war in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo? An end to ICE raids across our country? An end to the tyranny we’re living through? 

• What else can I do to contribute to the fight? What’s next? 

It’s been difficult to locate different channels of hope regarding the affairs of our country ever since I entered the age of 30 this year. Well, truthfully it’s always been strenuous - even when times seemed delightful on the surface. I must admit that watching California Governor Gavin Newsom fight back without fear against little Donny and his regime throughout this week has brought joy to my heart, if only for a few minutes. 

I wholeheartedly appreciate his willingness to take heed and lead the charge, backing his people not only with verbal support, but with legal actions taken against the federal government. This, in response to their authoritarian measures inflicted not only on Californian residents, but on various institutions across the country. Harvard, NPR and the Department of Education are just a few examples that currently find themselves in the thick of this bloody war for true democracy. I find myself even questioning that very term. True democracy. Does it even exist? 

Normally an optimist, this collection of thoughts may not seem like it. I still hold tightly onto my faith in a higher power. Faith in God. Faith in the universe. In regards to the country we live in, the systems that operate it, the men in control of those systems… my faith ran dry long ago. I want to have faith in Governor Newsom, and I’m honestly rooting for a decisive victory on the side of him and his staff in their current lawsuit, and any future ones that they file. Especially as a resident of California. As for my people, aka anyone standing in solidarity with undocumented immigrants, Palestinians, starving children, women and men in Sudan and oppressed people all over the globe, I’ll always have faith in us. And I do believe that eventually we’ll be triumphant in all of our wars. But strangely, things feel bleaker than ever right now. 

Which begs the question, am I doing enough?