“She looks like me!”
There’s something about those four words that mean so much. To see people of all genders and races see someone they can identify with, as a way of saying, “You can do this, too,” means more than I can write. When Sen Kamala Harris, wait I’m sorry, MADAM VP-ELECT KAMALA HARRIS, won alongside President-elect Joe Biden my mind went immediately to that phrase. Thinking of all the kids that dressed like her for Halloween, those looking at their television seeing a Black and South Asian woman enter the White House is breathtaking.
Representation is more than a doll or any other toy you get on Christmas day (though very important), your skin color, or seeing someone who identifies as a different gender portray or be seen as something outside the norm. Representation gives hope. It provides that nudge to keep going even when you want to give up. When the naysayers say it isn’t so, representation says it is.
And so you keep pushing because if they can do it, you can too.
When I think about the past week, which feels like 2 years, I feel a sense of hope. I look at people like Stacey Abrams, who took her unfair defeat for governor of Georgia and used it to help Georgia turn Blue, by making sure 800,000 people were registered.
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Cori Bush became the first Black congresswoman in Missouri.
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Sarah McBride became the first trans senator in U.S. history
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Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones became the first openly LGBTQ+ Black members of Congress
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Stephanie Byers became Kansas’s first trans legislator
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Jabari Brisport became the first LGBTQ+ person of color elected to the New York State Legislature
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Kim Jackson became Georgia’s first openly LGBTQ+ state senator
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Torrey Harris and Eddie Mannis became the first LGBTQ+ legislators elected in Tennessee
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Shevrin Jones and Michele Rayner-Goolsby became the first openly LGBTQ+ lawmakers in Florida
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Taylor Small became the first openly trans member of the Vermont legislature
(Read more on InStyle)
And speaking of Georgia, there is a critical senate race happening in January. If (when) we get both Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock Senate we will have a Democratic-run House, Senate, AND presidency, which means things can actually get done after four years of…well hell.
Whether or not you live in Georgia you can help:
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Donate to them Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock to help them campaign both in-person and online (digital advertising is CRUCIAL to reach voters).
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Help work phone or text banks through Stacey Abrams non-profit “Fair Fight.”
What’s next is to be determined. Right now the toddler-in-chief is throwing the biggest and probably the most expensive tantrum ever in the middle of a pandemic.
Wear a damn mask everywhere you go, folks. This is real.
And with that, I’m out. Love you. Mean it.
C
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