Afford to live & afford to dream
Imagination & ritual in the movement for justice
In this week‘s reading circle for You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take: Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty, the facilitators asked:
“What are the rituals that have been important to you and your family or community? What would it mean for you to experience those rituals in the context of a movement for justice?”
We talked about a big ritual for our country, the celebration of Independence Day on July 4th, and what it might mean for us to contextualize this day in our current movement for and peace and justice.
It’s a hard week for people who love humanity. Our federal government has traded healthcare and food access for secret police and concentration camps. If you’re awake, you’ve already read about the Big Deadly Bill. I won’t go into it.
An email from the May Day Movement proclaimed it to be Solidarity Summer. What would it look like to ground our summer rituals in solidarity?
I’ll tell you, it would probably look a little cringe. It would be earnest. It might feel silly or extra. But it might also feel exactly right.
Last week I was at Habitat’s U.S. Executive Summit in Long Beach, California. As always, it was deeply affirming to be in a room of folks doing their best to shine bright in dark times. There’s a phrase that keeps knocking around in my mind, about how part of our work is to help people “build their life on their own terms.” That’s what this is all about right? My particular work starts with ensuring access to a basic, vital need — shelter — but it’s about much more. A home is the beginning. It is, as we say, the foundation. But we don’t stop there. We keep dreaming. We keep hoping. We keep building.
’s essay captured some of this same hopefulness that she saw in Zohran Mamdani’s joyful New York City Democratic Primary campaign:Not as much attention has been paid to that second half of his campaign theme that hung behind on him during his victory speech: Afford to live & afford to dream.
“Afford to dream” - phew, what a phrase! The time, space, and freedom to dream, to want, to aspire for more — said another way: The capacity to be ambitious.
Mamdani ties it back to New York City as a city of dreamers, of strivers — a place where we can imagine more for ourselves. He connects it to how New Yorkers can demand more out of our government; we can envision something bigger.
I feel that spark when I learn about social housing, when we celebrate new houses in a neighborhood or when an incredible new public pool complex opens in my city. It takes imagination. It takes courage to dream.
On this day of American ritual, celebrating independence from a tyrant, I want to stay grounded in the movement for justice. I want to infuse my work with imagination and possibility. First, we stop the bleeding — we defend our democracy, our neighbors and our freedoms. They have been threatened and diminished at breakneck pace. We listen to credible historians who have seen these same patterns play out across the globe over many decades and we heed their warnings. I know it feels futile and ridiculous to think about new ideas when we’re struggling to even preserve the status quo. So we’ll prioritize the fight, we’ll protect each other and we’ll do our best limit the policy violence inflicted on our communities. We’ll say No, not in our name.
But even in the midst of it all, we’ll keep our eyes on the future we’re building. We’ll imagine the impossible.
We’ll blend our rituals and movement work to include culture, song, dance, art and joy. We’re not meant to be miserable robots burnt out from doomscrolling. We’ll sing our protest songs and paint beautiful signs. We’ll learn new traditions from our neighbors, we’ll organize over potlucks and dance clumsily at rallies. We’re starting meetings with poetry and blessing our food and the farm workers who grew It. We’re bringing bumper stickers to reunions and pamphlets to pool parties. Cynicism is the enemy of action.
Cheers to being earnest, sincere and cringe.
Happy independence day and the first official day of Solidarity Summer.
I’d like to humbly draw your attention to Sun Day, “a weekend of action on September 21, 2025, celebrating solar and wind power, and the movement to leave fossil fuels behind”. Yes, even today, as clean energy takes a massive hit, we look ahead and dream.
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For local folks, a group of alumni from our beloved College of Saint Rose is hosting a day of service in memory of our dear friend on September 20. Preliminary details here, a formal RSVP to come.
Bread and roses 🌹