Our Community has always known struggle.

Hi there.

The Glass House Board of Directors President here, Sam. How are you feeling? Have you been hydrating? Are you eating? Sometimes, things as simple as feeding our bodies can be hard when the burden upon our shoulders is so great. This is my second blog post since coming on as President of the Board and since creating the website, and in this one I’m going to be vulnerable. So skip it if you want!

I’m struggling; I bet you are as well, and that’s okay. It’s okay to not be okay, to mourn, to have fear, and to cry - that I’ve been doing a lot of. But mostly, I’m struggling with anger. It seems to be the only thing I do have an abundance of right now, at the administration steadfast on harming marginalized Americans across the country, at the people we thought cared about us but would rather see the price of eggs lower than for us to live a safe, authentic life, and at the feeling of our autonomy being stripped away with each anti-human rights Executive Order that is signed. But I am reminded that this is no new experience for our world, for our country, or for our community. Xenophobia has reared its head throughout history and devoured those it aimed to alienate. That is where I find myself now, unable to wallow any longer and unwilling to let the anger inside me or the hate we face daily consume me.

I woke to a great post from one of my closest friends yesterday, reminding us of the way Marsha P. Johnson lived. I hope they don’t mind that I steal the post,

“If you want to actually *be* like Marsha P. Johnson, you have to BE like Marsha P. Johnson.

You need to be kind.

You need to care about housing for queer people.

You need to care about queer youth.

You need to care about sex workers.

You need to care about food access.

You need to practice joy and gratitude.

You need to learn to give people their flowers.

You need to learn to share.

You need to learn how to raise your voice and fight.

You need to have pride in yourself.

But always, you need to be kind.”

Do you know what the “P” in Marsha P. Johnson stands for? “Pay It No Mind.” She used this to deter questions she didn’t want to answer and to assert her autonomy - she wasn’t going to share anything she didn’t want to. Today, I decided I’m not going quietly. Marsha, Sylvia, our Mothers of the Resistance, didn’t go quietly. They raised hell. They fought hard. They organized together. They created STAR, which Ms. Rivera said was “for the street gay people, the street homeless people, and anybody that needed help at that time." Our community has known struggle, we were BORN of struggle, and we will not go quietly in this one either. We have strength in our community, we know how to organize underground. We have strength in our allies, they are willing to put their bodies between the Black, Brown, and Queer community that may need it. We have strength in our history, humans are not kind but both give us a roadmap to utilize and remind us that when a pendulum swings extremely far one way there is a reaction with equal force or greater - its physics. So while we wait for the next 1,379 days (you better believe I’m counting it down) to pass, be kind. Be kind to yourself, your body is getting you through these hard times. Be kind to our community; this is NOT the time to alienate each other. They are working hard to divide us already, we need the shared strength and resources of our community more than ever. So I leave you with what I’m working toward this week: Being kind and fighting like hell.