“It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now?” “Guerrilla Radio” Rage Against the Machine White women, nice women, suburban moms and Insta dolled-up wives, college girls and grandmothers - you have been conditioned your whole lives to be quiet and polite and pleasing. All the while, every day, people are stripped of their dignity and humanity because of it, because of you, because of me. People in this country are quite literally dying because of our conditioning, our gentle nature. There is nothing gentle or polite about indifference to suffering. Many of you believe that because the people in the crosshairs don’t look like you, you are safe. Understand that, now, no one is safe. I know you are tired. I know you are empty and broken. I know how it feels to hold everyone together while the ground cracks beneath your feet. Give yourself a minute or a day or the week. Then when the ground stops shaking, sit and listen. Listen to your own breath pace with the ticking of time. It will not wait any longer for you. It has called and called, but you have not answered for fear of making a sound. It is time to shake off the burden of politeness and get loud. Really. Fucking. Loud. It is time to make people uncomfortable, even if that person is you. Trust me. That discomfort quickly becomes freedom, and you will like it.

As I sit down to write this November column, it is 24 hours until election day. Last month, I spent my time crafting an article that the Tribune refused to publish as it related “too directly to national politics,” a crime I have most certainly committed time and again over these past five years as a columnist for this newspaper. And while I understand why the Tribune might enforce such a policy to help limit contention, I object to any form of censorship whether it pertains to my words or anyone else’s. Given the crossroads we are facing in this moment and all that we stand to lose, I think one of the most notable losses we could suffer is the extermination of our freedom to disagree. I ask the Tribune to reconsider their decision on my October column and any other pieces by columnists who ventured into this forbidden territory, as national politics is sewn directly into our everyday lives. There is no escaping it. My previously unpublished column centered on how sexism continues to impact women in our homes, our workplaces, and on the national political stage in this current election. Without open dialogue surrounding the double standard that remains between the sexes, we can never hope to create an equitable community for ourselves and our children – a goal that far surpasses any single election, no matter how divisive this one may be. Moreover, by limiting our space for public disagreement, what else do we stand to lose as we head into voting day and beyond?

“Imagine the media treatment of Kamala Harris if she had five children by three different men.” Stop and actually imagine it. Imagine how far Harris would have made it in her very public career. District attorney of a top 20 U.S. city? Attorney General? U.S. Senator? Vice President? Not a chance. I was confronted with this quote at the start of Harris’ campaign all those long weeks ago, and not only has it stayed with me, it has grown. Imagine the treatment of Harris if she had 34 felony convictions or if she had filed bankruptcy multiple times. Imagine if she had paid off and slandered multiple people whom she had sexually assaulted. Imagine if she had inspired an attack on our nation’s capital, then stood by to watch the destruction. Imagine if she had worked to deny and sow doubt in America’s free and fair election process or refused to participate in our country’s long-standing tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.

In the week leading up to this year’s Fourth of July observance, we were reminded why the American patriarchy must come to an end. We were shown beyond all doubt that neither of the aged men struggling to reach us across a generational chasm is a viable option to lead this nation (though I would argue that should we be left in November with these garbage choices, there is a clear lesser of two evils). In addition to the 90 minutes of cold hard proof that the beloved patriarchy has destroyed not one but both of America’s major political parties, we were met this past week with the most damning Supreme Court decision in recent history, one that not only puts the lives of women on the line, but everyone, old white men included. It has signaled the fall of democracy itself. Yet still, the cheers reverberate from those failing to realize that in granting immunity to their guy, any other guy who beats and bullies his way into the highest office (because the patriarchy will never elect a gal) will wield the power of a dictator. Bringing me to my Independence Day thesis—I am sick to death of rich old white men, their infantile egos, and the patriarchy that protects them. I am sick of them sucking up all of the oxygen in every room they enter. I am sick of them putting their pride and their power above everything else, even when those things are living, breathing, screaming, dying human beings.

“Is that how we lived, then? But we lived as usual. Everyone does, most of the time. Whatever is going on is as usual. Even this is as usual, now. We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.” Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood Last week, I finally sat down to watch The Handmaid’s Tale based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel. While the television series was released seven years ago, I have not been able to bring myself to sit before it, neither in print nor on film, until now. This particular work, this tale of subjugation and violence against women, I could not open for fear it would feel too real. I was not wrong. I have sat with too many women who have been violated in these ways, women who were reduced to bodies, stripped bare of feeling or choice. These women, these friends, were not unlike Atwood’s protagonist, Offred. In those unspeakable moments, they were diluted to just their physical form, Handmaids all of them, all of us. I have experienced this violation myself. I have been reduced to a body more times than I can recall. I do not wish to recall these times but only to warn that such dystopia is not so far away in some imagined work of fiction. It is right here. It always has been here, breathing just under the surface, leaking out in millions of ways upon millions of women. We have all been Offred in some form, though so many still confuse their oppressors with saviors, as does Atwood’s problematic character, Aunt Lydia. “There is more than one kind of freedom,” said Aunt Lydia. “Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from.”

I’ve been suffering from a fierce case of writer’s block lately. I have nothing to say, or maybe I have too much. These days, my inability to pin down a topic sentence stems from the endless string of topics before me. Every day, I tally ideas in my head. Idling in the pick-up line at school, a scroll through my phone brings me to a friend’s Facebook post. In it, she outlines a procedure she endured after experiencing two separate miscarriages. She relives the grief of those unchosen, unwanted procedures to bring awareness to legislation that will outlaw these surgeries. For thousands of women across America, these necessary procedures are already banned. I want to scream. Instead, I jot down idea number one.

Last week I cried longer and harder than I have in a very, very long time. For three days, I dropped my kids off at school with visions of picking them up at the close of the afternoon in body bags. I could not shift that image from my mind as the hours of the morning ticked by. “Where are they right now?” I wondered, as I sorted the laundry. Were they sharing their good news for the day? Were they out for recess or nibbling on a morning snack? Were they thinking of me as I fixated on their little bodies ducking under desks as they tried their best to stay quiet? “Please stay quiet, please stay quiet,” I pleaded. Or maybe they should run. Maybe I should tell them to just run and keep running as fast as their feet can carry them. Maybe we should all run.

Two mothers stand along a busy road in the chill of a January afternoon. “Are you from here?” she had asked, peeking out the vehicle window. The woman, I had assumed, was in search of directions. “Yes, can I help?” Relieved, she exited her car with a small stack of postcards, bold black ink printed across the top. An American flag waved from the bottom. She pushed one in my direction. “I wanted to let you know about an upcoming school board meeting where they will be discussing some really important issues.” She smiles. I smile back. Based on the handout’s bullet points, I am doubtful we will be allies. But the concern in her eyes is evident, so I let my hope linger just a bit longer on the snowflakes drifting between us. “What are the issues?” I ask. She enters into her spiel. Her opening sentence snatches all hope from the wind and drops it to the icy sidewalk. It seems she is very concerned about the books in the school library. I wouldn’t believe the vulgarity in these books, I’m told. The cursing. The propaganda. The lesbians! And the lies – so many lies. “Would I believe all of these lies?” she wonders.