This week marked the 3rd anniversary of my tenure at NCLR. This anniversary has another significance for those of us in the Bay Area: I started this job the same day California introduced a mandatory shelter-in-place order due to the global COVID pandemic.
The pandemic punctuates the way many of us have experienced the past three years. Because the pandemic and my start at NCLR happened at the same time, for me, it has served as a reminder that we are inextricably interconnected, a demonstration of the principle that we are all in this together.
Just as our health is tied to each other, so is our fight for justice. Justice only exists when we all have it. So we have work to do. That is a sentiment that I’ve often returned to over the past three years. And as hard as we work, we still struggle to get it right.
Too often we treat critical bricks on our path to liberation as detours that only impact some of us. Voting rights matter to all of us, not just those of us confronted with the worst suppression efforts.