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November 6, 2024

• Honor your grief in this moment. Here are some prompts that might help you contextualize how you’re feeling.

• Share your grief with a friend or trusted outlet. Even saying things out loud or writing them down for someone can help, even if you don’t share it ultimately with someone else.

• Consider: what rituals do you have for processing grief in other aspects of your life? How can you (where relevant) apply them here? Maybe it’s lighting a candle, leading a procession, or reflecting on bright moments from this election season fondly.

• Take a moment to honor someone else’s grief by offering space, time or other resources to help them through. By acknowledging others grief, we create more space to process our own.

Mourning as a Form of Resistance

After a chaotic election, Trump won, over-performing his first path to victory in 2016, turning blue swing states (so far) from 2020 red, and likely winning the popular vote – the first for Republicans in twenty years. More damning, the Republican Party has won control of the Senate and will likely maintain control of the House of Republicans. It’s not good, and it makes our work more necessary, urgent, and important. There is so much at stake. First, we must mourn.

Acknowledging our grief has to be the first step forward. After all, many of us aren’t merely grieving a country under the leadership of Kamala Harris. We’re grieving what this election says about our nation’s inclination for women – especially Black women and women of color – in leadership. About the role of white cishet toxic masculinity. About xenophobia, racism, antisemitism and hatred. About diversity, equity and inclusion in practice beyond the buzzwords, and what it means to be a citizen, and calls from Mother Earth many refuse to acknowledge. We’re grieving the loss of bodily autonomy and accurate history, the right to refuge, and losing our family and friends to wars overseas. So much has been proposed this election season, and our nation has chosen a path forward that offers little for us all. We know how these decisions are reflected in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and around the dinner table this holiday season. And we deserve space to process that all.

Mourning is more than wallowing. Maybe you’re reading this right now under the covers with a bottle of Pinot and a comfort show queued up on Netflix – and you’ll get no judgment from me! But sometimes our coping strategies don’t allow us to mourn. Sometimes they give us the illusion that we’re creating space to honor and process our emotions, but in reality, they help us avoid confronting the pain and sorrow we feel. The world will force us back into action again eventually – that work meeting, taking your child to soccer practice, being forced to go to the grocery store to make dinner – and the precious time to mourn might be left behind. If you can, ease yourself into a dialogue with your thoughts, feelings and sensations, even if it’s hard. I’ve offered some prompts and resources to help you out.

Mourning is a necessary and urgent part of change – individual change and collective change. The process of acknowledging and processing grief has the capacity to change much about who we are, and what we know about ourselves. And that’s true on a collective level, too. Many of the moments that have shaped policy, shifted institutions, and reshaped communities were sparked by loss – the deaths of everyday people and political figures, the heartbreaks in mass shootings, the turmoil of elections lost. Without giving them space to be seen, felt and acknowledged, we couldn’t transform today to tomorrow.

And we need that now, desperately. We’ve all watched this election descend into chaos, the threats to democracy unchecked, the vile and vulgar racism, antisemitism and xenophobia fueling both policy and practice across the country. This isn’t just an election where one candidate lost, this is an acknowledgement of how far we’ve fallen, and how grave the stakes are. This deserves every moment of solemnity, rage, disbelief and heartbreak we can muster. Let it linger. Let it languish. Let it weigh so heavy on our hearts we cannot bear to carry it anymore, and we vow to never let another generation take this burden on.

When we mourn, we honor the love we carry for the people and causes that matter most to us. Grieving is one of the bravest things we can do. It’s a return to love for a system that might not love us back, but we do it anyway. It’s an expression of love for those disproportionately affected by this new administration. It’s an invitation to know ourselves, truly, in relationship to our political ideals. And it forces us to acknowledge ourselves and each other in a moment of defeat, when we’re often our most raw and vulnerable. We will move forward from here together, as we always do, and can do so in greater numbers with more fervent conviction.

We all have different individual relationships to mourning. The practice is more deeply embedded in different communities. Many have been forced to mourn more frequently, consistently harmed, discarded and abandoned by the systems and institutions that surround us. Many of us also come from religious, spiritual and cultural backgrounds that have made mourning more of a collective, public experience, making it more present and apparent in moments like these. Maybe you

Wherever yours may be rooted, I encourage you to honor that. Hold this space in honor of your own pain. Hold this space for the collective pain, and in solidarity with those that don’t have the time, resources or capacity to hold their own. And hold this space with the tenderness of a garden plot ready to bear new fruit, the tomorrow we’ve been fighting for.

Some questions to consider:

• How does your mourning practice mirror your practice of joy?

• How can your mourning practice keep you most physically, mentally, and emotionally stable?

• What is the difference between mourning and wallowing for you?

• What rituals can you create here to fortify yourself for future losses?

• How can this mourning connect you more closely to community, even if you’re mourning alone?

• In “This Is Not A Small Voice,” Sonia Sanchez reminds us of the power of our love and grief.

• Repetition is Sacred, written by participants in the Repetition is Sacred: Practicing Seven Generations workshop led by Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumby, reminds us on how our grief is part of our persistent practice in showing up.

• Grief Belongs in Social Movements. Can We Embrace It? A Black activist reflects on intergenerational trauma, community, and coming to terms with death in movement building.

• With-Women: Grieving in Capitalist Time by Sophie Lewis looks at grieving and carrying a new tomorrow forward in the lens of motherhood, which feels apt considering what’s at stake for reproductive rights in the years ahead.

• “From the Ashes” by Sarah Jaffe highlights the role that mourning plays in movement work.

I kept this in here from yesterday’s newsletter and added based on the election results. Here are some virtual opportunities to gather with movement leaders in the days ahead. Find more IRL and locally-relevant ones based on your location by using this link.

None of these recommendations are endorsements for organizations or affiliated candidates; just sharing what might resonate with this readership from around the web. Also please note that Reimagined is not running any of these events; I cannot answer any questions around accessibility, recordings, or logistics - please contact the organizers.

TODAY, NOVEMBER 6

12pm, 1pm, 2pm and 3pm EST

The Movement Voter PAC is hosting a post-election recap. “Jump for joy, cry bitter tears, or bite our nails awaiting delayed results in the company of like-minded Democratic and progressive donors, activists, organizers, and strategists.” RSVP >

8:30pm EST

Join Indivisible on Wednesday 11/6 for a Post-Election Update call, led by co-founders Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin. RSVP >

TOMORROW, NOVEMBER 7

1pm EST

The Center for Reproductive Rights is hosting “Post-Election Briefing: The Path Forward for Reproductive Freedom,” with legal experts to election results and explore what these outcomes mean for reproductive freedom in the U.S. RSVP >

6pm EST

Movement 4 Black Lives is hosting a post-election recap – join to reflect on the election results, breathe, and share strategy as we enter 2025. RSVP >

8pm EST

“Make Meaning of the Moment” A coalition of progressive movement organizations are hosting a post-election briefing to “share expert analysis of Election Day and its results, and how you can take action in whatever scenario we find ourselves.” RSVP >

8pm EST

Generation Vote, the only national youth-led electoral justice organization, is hosting a welcome event for those eager to re-commit themselves to the work. RSVP >