Today is supposed to be a day where we sit in remembrance of the valiant fight for progress that Martin Luther King Jr helped to champion throughout the Civil Rights Era. And I want to do that, but it is difficult for me this year. Each time I have tried to sit and find the words to talk about freedom in this country, I have had to wrestle with the fact that I will have to spend the rest of my life advocating for a return to the freedoms Reverend King's generation bled and died to secure for mine. Like most Millennials, I grew up being told that there was hope because of all of the progress our nation--and world--had made. And now, in a matter of just a couple of years, we have had to watch all of it unravel. And I am angry.

But I don't just want to talk about what we have lost. I want to talk about the future we are fighting for. Because despite the intentions of our world leaders in this moment, we will have a future. I am certain of it. And I believe with all of my being that we can still fight for that future to be filled with purpose and hope and life. Which is why I continue to do the work that I am doing. Because I believe that now, more than ever, the world needs to hear from the people in the margins who are using their voices to paint a better future and to challenge the one our oppressors are so determined to force on us.

Here is what I believe:

There is nothing they can do to take the future from us.

One of the things that has allowed me to hold onto hope as I have watched this administration (and the people they represent) gleefully dismantle our human rights is the fact that our ancestors not only endured this same hatred. They overcame it. Even as we grieve the unprecedented choices that are being made around us, the systems they are drawing on to execute their evil intentions are not unprecedented. These people are relying on a foundation of hatred, bigotry and greed that has existed throughout the entire thread of the United State's history. None of this is new. Our grandparents, their parents, and their parents before them fought this same evil and they overcame, because the future does not belong to our oppressors, no matter how badly they would like to pretend it does.

In the same way slavery fell, this evil can fall. In the same way Jim Crow was dismantled, this injustice can be dismantled. In the same way the klan was beaten back before, their descendants can be beaten back now. And I find hope in the fact that with each oppression we have fought through, we have come to understand the systems that empower our oppressors more. Which impacts the way that we dream. So I have hope that when this fight has been won, our eyes will be even more open than they are today, and perhaps we can begin dreaming in a way that spares our children from the same fight we are in today.

Perhaps, as we begin to reshape our dream for the future, we can refuse to see success as a replacement for freedom. Or power as a replacement for change. Perhaps, when we have fought our way to liberty, this new vision will allow us to see a way beyond progress so that we can take hold of actual change. But I think that will require that we not lose sight of the artists in the margins.

We cannot let go of the anger or the hope.

In every single moment of great change, it has been the artists in the margins who have held on to our collective anger and our collective hope and forced us to continue dreaming. History centralizes those who fought for the dreams that our ancestors rallied under, but we have to remember the artists who protected their ability to dream to begin with. The singers, and poets, and painters, and authors who challenged society to see the world for what it was and to dare to envision what it could become. They have always been central to the fight for liberation and our societies ability to even picture what freedom could be.

The James Baldwins and Octavia Butlers. The David C. Driskells and the Billie Hollidays. The Martin Luther King Jr.s and the Nikki Giovannis.

They were the brush used to paint our dream of the future. Their art inspired the people to act. It immortalized their anger and refused to allow them to look away until justice had been won. It emboldened the marginalized and forced the privileged to see the cost of their peace. Art has always been a catalyst for change. And that has not changed today.

This is why my resistance looks the way it does.

Over the last year, I have had so many people ask me how I can continue talking about books as the world burns around us. And this is my answer. The world burning around us is exactly why I have to continue talking about books. Because while it is not in our nature to see the people around us as comparable to the great voices of change that we worship from the past, our grandchildren will. The future is in our hands. But our dreams are in the hands of the artists so many of you keep asking me to forget about.

There is a reason that this industry, and other artistic industries, has been so resistant to creating space for Black and brown voices over the centuries. Our writers, our singers, our painters, our poets...they hold the dreams of our people. And our dreams are dangerous to the systems that keep our oppressors empowered.

Remember that.

Our dreams are dangerous. Which is why I firmly believe that for our future to be bright, our dreamers must be championed.

The more the world burns, the more these voices matter. The more people lose hope, the more stories that center the powerless matter. And the more we grow complacent in the aftermath of our suffering, the more we need the art that confronts us with our own anger and hope.

The artists help us dream.

The artists help us remember.

A more personal appeal

That is what I had in mind when I partnered with Bindery to champion Black and brown authors. Not just a publishing company that I could call my own. But a platform that I could use to empower our dreamers to confront YOU.

And that is the work I am constantly encouraging and challenging you to be a part of. I won't claim to know which stories or which artists will push society forward. But I do know that it will be stories and artists that help do it. And I do know that what we are building here is a community that is passionate about fighting for the voices who are committed to doing so.

With that said, I want to challenge everyone reading this to make sure that you respect and protect the people who hold onto our dreams. Fight for the people who hold onto our anger. Fight for the people who hold onto our hope. They have a role to play in what the future looks like.

And I am not audacious enough to suggest this community is the only one fighting. We are not. There are MANY people and companies fighting for this exact thing. Many authors, many singers, many record labels, indie publishers, and even people within the biggest organizations who want change. We are not alone. But every voice matters and what we are doing is significant. So if you are here, investing in this work, I am grateful for you more than words can express. And if you are not yet, I hope that today will be the day you decide to be. Come be a part of what we are doing. Join our community. Get involved talking about and championing these authors. Invest in change.

To whatever capacity you can be involved, I want you to know that you are important and I want you here.

Subscribe to the community at whatever tier makes sense for you and be ready to jump into the work together. We need you.

I am also going to post a link to the first two books this community is putting out because I truly believe they are revolutionary conversations that do exactly what I am describing in this blog.

Cry, Voidbringer is an anti-colonial story about a conscripted warrior who was taken from her home as a child and raised by a neighboring nation to fight in their war against a fading colonial power. When she comes across a small child with supernatural power she decides to do whatever it takes to protect her from being turned into a weapon in the same war that stole her childhood. It is a conversation about complicity, the impact of colonialism on the identity of marginalized people and the moral implications of picking up the weapons of our oppressors in our own fight for liberation. https://bookshop.org/a/87137/9781964721521

Devil of the Deep is a Haitian fantasy about a pirate and a navy captain who have to work with a young mermaid who has fled her home to escape an underwater cult who want to use an ancient artifact in her possession to reshape the world into the image of their forgotten god. This book is a beautiful conversation about the way colonial religion is used as a tool to erase the culture and ancestral practices of marginalized people and to force them into compliance. https://bookshop.org/a/87137/9781967967049