The horrors persist but so do I. I must keep writing. This is my little voice crying out here … can anyone hear me? Last night at the Oscars, I felt like no one was talking about the elephant in the room. Our country is falling apart at the hands of Trump and Musk and Vance, but most were silent. I saw one Ukrainian ribbon on someone and one quick “Slava Ukraine!” from Darryl Hannah and one eloquent acceptance speech from the documentary film winner (“No Other Land”) and activist Basel Adra about the need to collaborate and find peace.* And, of course, best actor winner Adrien Brody spoke out about racism and antisemitism. All good, but I thought I’d hear more. Those voices are being amplified today but last night watching the four hour program I felt frustrated that more people were not using this worldwide audience to speak out against the horrors happening in this country.
Friday afternoon we saw the president and vice president of this country treat the president of Ukraine with contempt. Ukraine was invaded by Russia three years ago. We – along with our closest allies - have supported Ukraine all this time. Now this despicable administration – with the backing of most Republican lawmakers – is pulling away from Ukraine in favor of Russia. Why is no one yelling about this from the rooftops? This is so, so wrong.
Yesterday afternoon in the midst of the Mardi Gras chaos** here, my neighbors and I walked the few blocks over to Audubon Park to visit the temporary owl sanctuary in the middle of the city. A momma Great Horned Owl birthed two owlets in a nest in this large, welcoming oak tree in early February. The Audubon Nature Institute promptly put up temporary plastic fencing to protect the young owls from dogs and other potential predators as they learned to fly.
We spotted one owlet and both parents. They were impressive. Even the owlets had enormous wing spans. A finch kept approaching the owlet and he just flapped his wings to scare away the little bird. As we kept watching, the owlet flew to another branch. Everyone clapped as the young raptor practiced flying. The parents perched on a branch a bit higher up and hooted to protect their offspring. Listening to them say, “Whoooo,” I thought why don’t we speak out more? Why don’t we say, “Whoooo will save our country?”
Whoooose voice can we hear? Joe Biden said, “Silence is complicity.” Silence in the face of the demise of democracy is a crime. I keep thinking about Martin Luther King’s words in his famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail. He said that the great stumbling block to freedom is the white moderate “who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”
We must persist. If enough of us speak out, our voices will begin to resonant as we claim back the country we love. The country that values justice over “success,” equality over supremacy of any one race, peace over threats of war, collaboration over imperialism. The horrors can stop, but only if we speak up.
*Despite a string of honors and rave reviews, no distributor would pick up this film - No Other Land - in the United States, making it nearly impossible for American filmgoers to see it in theaters or to stream, according to the New York Times today.
**Deep Gras is all I have time for, apart from my calls to legislators and these rants. Tomorrow is Fat Tuesday. One more night of joyful parades and then tomorrow morning’s Zulu and Rex and then we will rest.