Postcard from North Carolina - July 2026
Greetings, Friend!
First, it was all the fencing. I kept flashing to the 2016 protests and how the DC police used kettling against protestors. Last week, while spending the day in downtown DC, access to the Mall was completely cut off; no signage directing us left or right when forward was impossible. What a metaphor! And then, as we stood in the 90° heat, I couldn’t help but notice the armed military stationed everywhere, rifles casually over their shoulders like day bags. I dislike feeling trapped.
I was embarrassed that I had not anticipated the crowds or the patriotism. I went to DC to meet up with a friend, mentor, and my writing coach for the last 3 years, Julie G. As she lives in Northern California, I felt compelled to see her and enjoy a day of art and yummy food. But the heat and the imposed patriotism proved a mighty challenge to the easeful wandering I had imagined when we first concocted our day off from work.
Downtown was overrun with people in those red baseball hats, you know the ones, making me feel extremely gay and Jewish and both provoked to stand on a bench and yell, “this is my country too!” but also made me feel like maybe I don’t belong to this place any more than the tourists taking a photo in front of the giant typewriter eraser by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. I hadn’t been around so many American flags in a long time.
Julie and I walked the way we were directed, blocks out of our way, and eventually made it to the Washington Monument. When we looked out over the white tents and fences displaying “250 Year Anniversary” flags in red, white, and blue, we could just barely make out the Lincoln Memorial, stubbornly watching over the charade.
Happy 250th! Celebrating 250 years! These signs plastered all over the city sent me back to the Bicentennial in 1976. As a child in France, my dad initially took odd jobs. I remember he sold the Encyclopedia Britannica door to door to nonplussed Frenchmen and their wives, peering at the books and shaking their heads, tapping their cigarette ash out in the doorways. But in 1976, Sam took the oddest job of all: selling these hideous American Flag watches to people on the beach. From Antibes to Saint-Tropez, my father zig-zagged through hundreds of topless women, smiling and inviting their attention on his watches. My sister and I played in the water, keeping an eye on his Hawaiian shirt receding in the distance or moving back towards us. Eventually, Sam found more stable employment with the British government, and our beach trips were relegated to weekends.
Later, we walked from lunch to the Washington Monument, we came to the Department of Justice building. His face loomed over us in the heat. I have never seen such a thing in the United States. It reminded me of Hanoi where large banners of Ho Chi Minh’s face hung on buildings. And the phrase at the bottom made me laugh out loud, “Make America Safe Again.” The hubris and the lie, on display for all to see. How many Department of Justice employees swallowing their contempt in order to feed their families must walk into this building everyday. And some perhaps happy with the changes; I presume they’ve been indoctrinated into a very different understanding of Justice. The American Bar Association estimates that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has experienced a massive loss of staff under the Trump administration, with advocacy groups estimating that roughly 5,500 to 6,400 employees—including up to 3,000 attorneys—have left, been fired, or taken buyouts. These departures represent roughly half of the DOJ's total career attorney workforce.
In my own state of North Carolina, for the last year, a series of controversial bills on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), immigration and firearms remained stalled after Democratic Gov. Josh Stein vetoed them. House Republicans were one vote short of the three-fifths majority needed to override the governor's vetoes without Democratic support. That changed on Wednesday, June 24th, when two lame duck democrats were absent from the chamber.
Among the measures that became law were three anti-DEI bills affecting state agencies, K-12 public schools, and public colleges and universities. The legislation eliminates DEI offices and programs, prohibits DEI considerations in hiring and training, restricts the teaching of certain "divisive concepts" in schools, and bars higher education institutions from maintaining bias response systems for reports of microaggressions or offensive speech.
A few days later, I read that Texas will make reading the bible a mandatory part of the curriculum starting in 2030.
We are witnessing the institutionalization of white christian supremacy in our country. So many wonderful activists organize every day to fight these efforts and maintain the dignity of our democracy. As I write this, I hope that you will stop what you are doing today and ask yourself what you are doing to support BIPOC led organizations, organizations working for the separation of church and state, or your own local public schools, which may be in dire need of voices that support the accurate teaching of American history. Writing checks is not enough at this point. Our bodies, and I am speaking to white people, my people here, our white bodies are needed in these rooms, at these public hearings, in your state legislators’ offices.
Julie and I observed a couple of sweet trees off to the south of the Monument, fenced off (of course), and decided this was the only thing left to do. So we lay down on the grass, and to my surprise the park rangers left us alone. Kicking off my sneakers and socks, feeling the thick grass on my toes and ankles. I lay back watching the sky, busy with storm clouds, deciding what to do.
I couldn’t imagine the paperwork responsible for preserving these two trees in the middle of all the chaos. How had they managed to survive? Was it preservation and care? Had someone’s advocacy allowed their presence to remain? Or was it some miraculous oversight? We survive through so many means.
“When school and mosque and minaret get torn down, then dervishes can begin their community. Not until faithfulness turns to betrayal and betrayal into trust can any human being become part of the truth.”
Provocations and Nourishment
Upcoming Opportunities
Monthly accountability group, Accountabilabuddies.
Six months of support to make those new habits stick. We start in September! Forming New habits is more effective and more fun in community!
New Ancestors rides again! White people with rank or influence! Here’s a space to show up for your own journey. Fall antiracism coaching group.
Finding Freedom in person in Atlanta~ White women and genderqueer folks: Come on over and dig into some antiracism work.
Toward Justice,
Evangeline
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