Trickle Down...
How do you write about injustices without sounding too emotional? The answer is to be authentic and if emotions like anger, bitterness, or helplessness show through or in your work, that is the truth of things. Let it be. Your readers should sit with the truth… if it is their choice to walk with you.
This thought came to mind when I was trying to figure out how to even write about Adriana Smith. She’s the young Black mother whose family was not permitted to give her a dignified death, when she succumbed to complications while in the early stages of her pregnancy. State laws in Georgia that were crafted due to the dismantling of Roe vs Wade made it illegal for doctors to let her die with dignity while pregnant. The hospital where she was taken had a legal obligation to preserve the life of her unborn child rather than her own. They kept her body alive, although her brain was dead, with the hope of saving the baby’s life. This decision was made in February; Ms. Smith was eight weeks pregnant and the mother of a young son. This week (roughly four months later), the medical team performed a C-section on her and the baby boy was taken from her body, weighing in at just under two pounds. His name is Chance, and he has entered the world without his mother to care for him.
As a mother, my heart is shattered for Ms. Smith’s sons, for her mother and extended family. I cannot imagine the wave of emotions they are and have been experiencing due to politics interfering in this medical situation, one that should have been left entirely up to Ms. Smith’s family. I wouldn’t want anyone other than my family making medical decisions about my care. This is the definition of government overreach and demonstrates how having full bodily autonomy is critical to every individual, in every family.
Meanwhile, the souls of many Black Americans are vibrating with the echoes of the horrors endured by Henrietta Lacks and the soldiers of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. These two examples being the most prominent ones of this country’s obsession(?) with experimenting on Black bodies. Having to repeatedly remind people that we are human and that our lives matter, even in big ol’ 2025, is exhausting. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: this country has a very serious problem with the truth. The old adage “those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it” has never been more relevant than now.
I wish y’all knew how much I would rather write short stories of science fiction or horror. I’d even settle for writing about rainbows and butterflies and lightning bugs and stardust and little black girls and boys frolicking in fields of wildflowers. But there is always someone who comes along to threaten a good thing like healthcare-for-all (which would actually lead to a more sustainable workforce), just so that they can put a man in charge of HHS to say out of his own mouth that he wouldn’t take medical advice from himself (by the way, IKYFL…). A move that, although exists in the junk drawer of this “administration”, trickles all the way down to the local level and into the hospital room of a young mother whose family has no say about her care, and dammit, I can’t not write about that. I would shame my ancestors by keeping quiet at a time such as this.
Because I believe in being a help and not a hurt, I can offer one suggestion: we face the truth of the moment. I know that we are fully in the grips of a kakistocracy, but first, for those of you who don’t know what that is, Google is your friend. For those of you who are ready to work and if you have any influence at all in the lives of some of your loved ones, please ask them to tighten up post haste, tout de suite or whatever phrase you use for “right the hell now”. We need to go ahead and wrap our minds around the fact that what is being undone now will take at least another generation to correct. At least. To that end, we have a responsibility to maintain as best as we can the level of existing education. We simply cannot afford the dumbing down of America to become normalized. We do this by remaining informed and doing what we can to call out dis- and misinformation at every opportunity. In the meantime, grab yourselves a copy of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Learn a little something and share with those who understand the gravity of this moment.
I know there are lots of distractions in the world, but please consider supporting a cause locally or globally. If you don’t have time to give to a cause, donations are always welcomed. Check out these organizations and be sure to Google (or open and use your favorite search engine) to find others: