So many times in this past year, I’ve wanted to speak to the complexities and nuances of how we approach difficult things in our difficult world–injustice, forgiveness, inequity, mental health. And each time, it just comes back to this: find yourself a trauma-informed politics. It’s a journey, it’s systemic, it’s human-oriented, it’s radical, it’s messy, and, above all, it’s hopeful. I’m going to write more on this, once I’ve read and absorbed more by Kai Cheng Thom, by Clementine Morrigan, by Mariame Kaba. For now, here’s a poster.
Ambika Kamath 
Dear Ambika Kamath,
I heard you speak on This Week in Evolution’s 60th (5 Year Anniversary) episode, and I must say I was completely unable to do anything else while you were speaking. Your thoughts were the most wonderful of all I heard. As you spoke of holistic pathways toward doing science that did not forget social justice and the human spirit, I immediately thought of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, Silvia Federici’s Re-Enchanting the World, M. Jacqui Alexander’s Pedagogies of Crossing, Angela Davis’ Freedom is a Constant Struggle, and Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, along with others, and ultimately including Marx’s Capital Vol. 1.
Thank you. You gave me renewed hope in the middle of an ongoing disaster, and it is invaluable and beautiful. I very much hope to hear your name mentioned again. As a somewhat agoraphobic autodidactic trans woman in her 50s, I doubt I’ll have the opportunity anytime soon to be in your orbit, but please know that I am cheering you with all my heart.
Oh thank you so much for this comment! I’m glad that my words gave you hope. For what it’s worth, I’m in the process of writing a memoir/manifesto, and so I hope you’ll have a chance to come across that eventually 😀
And thank you for the book recommendations! I have so much reading to do, I’m always grateful for a broadening and deepening of that list.