Take a moment and sit with this:
A country can be both powerful and fragile at the same time.
We can be proud—and still be in the wrong.
And right now, we’re standing in the middle of a reckoning.
The question isn’t why anymore… It’s what we do next.
There’s a hard truth we don’t want to acknowledge. We are here because of apathy, arrogance, and anger.
And three things can be true at once.
First, the reckoning—the judgment on America—can be deserved. Our standing in the world, the fall from once being revered to a joke, is deserved. Our actions have impacted for the worse, the world economy.
Second, there are a lot of people getting caught in the gears of that reckoning.
And third, plain and simple, ain’t nobody got time for this kind of suffering.
So the real questions of why we are here are over. It’s time to focus on how we set things right.
I’m not here to say “I told you so.” That’s easy, and it doesn’t solve anything. But I do want to ground us in a quick lesson.
People died fighting for civil rights. Not centuries ago—less than seventy years. There are people caught in pictures screaming at little children, threatening violence because a child wants an education. Less than seventy years, they can still be alive. Their children who grew up with hate are still here, still carrying the hate. But now they are screamers, politicians, footstools in the patriarchy. Heck, they might be leading it.
The Voting Rights Act passed in 1965. So let’s round up, seventy years is supposed to make up for 400 years of slavery?
According to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) at least 4,400 lynchings of Black Americans occurred between 1877 and 1950.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and other National Archives, Civil Rights Movement records, estimate 60+ people were killed in direct civil rights–related violence between 1960 and 1965.
We know the famous names:
Medgar Evers (1963)
Herbert Lee (1961)
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner (1964)
Jimmie Lee Jackson (1965)
Viola Liuzzo (1965)
Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley
They were between 11 and 14 years old, killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
When I research and one of those photos comes up, you know the ones with hordes of adults screaming and wishing harm on babies like Ruby Bridges.
I see eyes glazed over with hate, mouths open, screaming curse words, and words at children integrating schools. But I’m supposed to believe that these hateful people’s children and grandchildren miraculously have no more prejudice…you know, the prejudice that forced us to legislate decency and morality.
That these people in my neighborhood, near my child and other brown and Black children, have evolved.
The past isn’t gone. It’s merely buried. When no one is watching, hate has a way of rising back up.
Far too many of us got comfortable. We lived in neighborhoods that looked integrated on the surface. We worshipped in spaces where anyone could walk in. We shopped, ate, worked, and convinced ourselves that access meant equity—that if you were qualified, you could get the job; if you worked hard, you’d be fine.
That comfort made us forget the stakes.
We can’t be forgetful when others are already standing in unemployment lines. Some are choosing between medicine and groceries. Others were already relying on food banks just to make it through the week.
And now, more people are feeling that edge. Seventeen thousand people just lost their job as jet fuel prices spike. We had an economy that, for a moment, felt like it was rebounding—strong, even enviable. But instability, policy choices, and global tensions have brought us to a place where the cost of living is climbing fast. Safety nets are thinning. Healthcare is slipping out of reach for far too many.
There’s a widening gap between those who are managing and those who are barely holding on.
Yes—if you have a roof over your head, a working car, food in your fridge—you’re not doing so badly.
But that’s not the whole picture. It can’t be. Some folks are:
One paycheck away. One emergency away. One layoff away from disaster.
If you’re listening to this essay—on a podcast app, on Substack, anywhere—you have a degree of privilege.
Use that guilt. Bear our responsibility in this mess.
We were, at one point, moving—slowly, imperfectly—toward a more perfect union.
Then fear crept in.
Fear that equality meant loss. Fear that if everyone has a seat at the table, some people wouldn’t feel special anymore. And that fear dressed itself up in many forms—sexism, misogyny, exclusion, resentment, and yes, good old-fashioned racism.
You can’t put that genie back in the bottle. There’s no Superman coming to spin the world backward so we undo everything and make better choices.
This is the burden—and the beauty—of a fragile democracy.
We get to choose. Even when we choose poorly.
So now we’re here, in this moment, asking ourselves:
What else are we willing to lose?
How much more will be stripped away before we pay attention?
I am afraid. More afraid than angry. This is a new place for me. And I suppose for you too.
Since three things can be true at once, then we can do three things at once:
We can acknowledge the reckoning.
We can care for the people caught in it.
And we can decide, collectively, that we don’t have time to sit around and take things like voting for granted… that is, while we still can.
This week’s book list features books to help us process:
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi — Explains how neutrality and “not racist” thinking fuel systemic harm.
Walking with the Wind by John Lewis — A firsthand account of the Civil Rights Movement that reminds us how recent—and costly—those gains were.
Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson — Argues that America operates under an unspoken caste system, explaining why inequality persists despite progress.
And if you just want to raise a sword and cut to the truth, consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea, my latest release.
Or if you are in need of laughs and inclusivity, preorder or review at NetGalley, a Deal at Dawn. Step into a cliffhanger, where the Duke of Torrance is dying to finally be a father to his daughter but he must deal her with mother, the woman who humbled him and broke his heart.
All these books from The A Small Place Bookshop. They still have a few signed copies of Fire Sword and Sea.
You can also try one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are in the trenches with me.
You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.
Hey. Let’s keep rising and creating together. That’s the truth, I need you. Like, share, subscribe, and stay connected to Write of Passage.
Thank you for being here.
I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.
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