NOTICINGS: Parallel polis
Finding our footing on the balance beam of private life and government power.
Credit: Paul Weaver/SOPA ImagesThe photo on the left represents reading available to me because of my public library.
The photo on the right, posted online, illustrates a cancellation. I was enraged. My gut reaction contrasts with President Obama’s keen ability to keep fire out of his remarks, such as in conversation with Heather Cox Richardson, which I watched last night. Obama’s approach opens the door to rational discussion, an essential practice for us to get along. Still, I respect the rage I feel.
Anger is a direct connection to what all humans are born with. At birth, every single human needs—literally, for survival—to be seen to flourish. Neuroscientists say so. The study of babies who were never held and died as a result says so. As we witness the person who did not win the 2020 election but says, nevertheless, that he did win, says so.
Being seen as oneself is the beginning of feeling the need to be free. Now this may come as a surprise, but before John Milton wrote Paradise Lost, the epic poem considered the most influential poem in English, his life was riven with political tensions that deeply divided the powers and people of his day. He wrote treatises. He served in the new government formed after a war. Scholar Ormond Reade, whose recent book, What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Afterlife of Paradise Lost, writes that Milton created “not only a work of art, [but] an important political document….Paradise Lost written in 1667, went on to influence readers embedded in revolutionary struggles in America [Thomas Jefferson], France, Haiti, and elsewhere.” Malcolm X, too. Before he was Malcolm X and serving time in prison. The poem explains, writes Reade, that “freedom is the natural condition of humanity, the fundamental value on which societies should be built.”
Another story figures here, too. When women were not permitted to speak in public, one Lucretia Mott, an American Quaker, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer, dedicated her life to speaking out. In 1848, she spoke out against slavery. Mott took the freedom for herself to be herself. She did not surrender to the dictates that women may not speak in public.
Mott became the first president of the American Equal Rights Association in 1866, which was formed to achieve equality for African Americans and women. Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images GroupFor the past three years, I have been an instructor in the Roots of Empathy program. Roots of Empathy (ROE) develops empathy in children, enabling them to build the world they deserve. As I observed and instructed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-graders, I felt the joy of children being seen. I saw their anger when they were not heard. I experienced how they saw, touched, and understood their “Tiny Teacher,” a baby, brought to the classroom by their parent. Once a month for nine months, we watched Baby grow, and ourselves grow as we grew to understand what our Tiny Teacher liked and did not like. The students began to understand how it feels to be free to express all emotions, as babies do. ROE has reached 1.2 million children globally. Independent research reports long-lasting positive results.
The sudden denial of Amazon and other major corporations to support Juneteenth events is a direct line to TACO Man’s demands for absolute loyalty to him. They set aside their freedom to acknowledge the existence of slavery and emancipation from slavery to protect their bottom line. The cancellation is a direct line to the enslaved who were products for profit. It is a direct link to the Middle Passage, the Civil War, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Act, redlining neighborhoods to prevent Black home ownership, and the gutting of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court in 2013. And today, it is not stopping with race, as it is visibly evident. It is a direct line to online algorithms, which control users—us!—for profit only.
Juneteenth. Well now. HCR tells the story of Juneteenth in her June 18, 2025 Letters from an American, and again in another way, on her YouTube channel. Links to both are in the notes below.
I’m addressing the need to be seen, as well as the consequences of when that need is met and when it is not. The cost of not being seen is evident in Donald J. Trump’s executive orders. Our need to be seen is evident in the huge number of citizens across the country who attended the No Kings protests. No one ever accepts being used and unfree.
My rage in response to the photo on the top right is a pep talk between me and myself: learn more. Write more. Do more. As in, make my 5 calls to my congressional representatives, and talk to you.
As we stay informed, non-bureaucratic, dynamic, and open, we resist despotic power and protect the indivisibility and the inalienability of justice and liberty for all.
Post your two photos of the balance beam you’re walking on in the CHAT.
Between protest rallies, there is work to be done. Form a plan with your Adjacent Seven about what you’re going to say to your congressional rep. Write postcards. And/or make your 5 Calls. We can also share what our parallel polis looks like on a day-to-day basis in the chat.
True freedom is the freedom to thrive, to take risks for futures we choose by working together.Why? For the sake of each of us, together in community, to know the details that strengthen the bonds of friendship.
So let’s go for it. Between rallies, we can share with one another what our parallel polis looks like on a day-to-day basis. I post. You post. Let’s keep a record, like a diary. This will help to keep us solid. My story, your stories, will tell family members in the future what we experienced during this time.
And yes, walking the balance beam takes practice. But we love practice! And we’ve got one another, and that is what makes this time bearable, doable, and, maybe, a bit of fun. Laughter and some good jokes are vital to staying steady.
I can’t wait to see your parallel polis photos where we stick that walk (or backflip) on the balance beam.
Now. Between rallies, we can share with one another what our parallel polis looks like on a day-to-day basis. It is something all of us can do, here.
Why? For the sake of each of us, together in community, to know the details that bind us.
Walking the balance beam takes practice. But we love practice! And we’ve got one another, and that is what makes this time bearable, doable, and, maybe, a bit of fun. Make a face. LOL.
I can’t wait to see your photos, where we stick that walk (or backflip) on the balance beam.
_________
NOTES
https://barackobama.medium.com/conversation-at-the-connecticut-forum-e5e168e08ba8
Orlando Reade, What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Afterlife of Paradise Lost, Jonanthan Cape, 2024.
“Some said the land could be cleansed only by his death. Finally, the King was put on trial. On January 30, 1649, he was led to the scaffold. The stroke that cleaved his head from his neck was met with a groan from the crowd.”
https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/lucretia-mott.htm
Letters from an American (Wednesday, June 18, 2025)