Courage By Any Other Name

I watched the first presidential debate of the 2024 election on June 27. Let me rephrase: I, along with so many other concerned people in the United States and around the globe, witnessed two elderly, extremely wealthy white men debate about who could carry a golf bag longer, whether they remembered the names of political leaders, and who could finish their sentences without a gaffe. Not only did it feel like a waste of time, it felt like a mockery of our collective intelligence.

The past few years have felt like a sequence of disappointments as political leaders, celebrities, large corporate brands, news outlets, and political parties have leaned further away from truth-telling and the bravery of accountability and instead toward profit margins and easy ways out. If the Band-Aid brand had an era, it would be the period between 2020 and today. This has only become clearer as race and equity efforts secured in the wake of the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis have been rolled back at prominent universities like the and the . Even newsrooms have been affected. has disbanded its race and equality team but claimed through a spokesperson that 鈥渢he investment is still 100 percent there.鈥�

Because of these recent experiences, I have been reflecting on the importance of courage. I like to rely on the wisdom of that courage is about being afraid but doing the scary thing anyway. Courage has never been about being fearless, without feelings, or avoiding our emotions. Instead, courage is about doing the good thing, the right thing, even and especially when doing it is challenging. But, as I have watched silent colleagues quietly retreating to their inner selves and home lives as the world burns, landfills spill over, waterways remain polluted, and the future of our country (and perhaps our planet) remains uncertain, I have, once again, been reminded of the hard lesson that I live amongst cowards and this nation is certainly not 鈥渢he home of the brave.鈥�

I find it troubling that in this political moment, saying 鈥済enocide is wrong鈥� requires courage. I like to believe that there have been times in history when that fact was a given, not a 鈥渞adical鈥� stance. But deep down I know that we have always been a nation conceived of and established by cowards. White men who were convinced of their superiority felt self-assured and legitimized, even ordained, when colonizing, raping, and pillaging land already occupied by thousands of tribes of Indigenous people. These same men were the ancestors of more men who thought it economically justified to steal Africans from their homelands and force them into labor鈥攊n service of white colonial capital鈥攊n the Caribbean and North American South. They are the kinfolk of warring nations, men old and young who, because of their whiteness and gender power, have used their land, wealth, and 鈥渋ngenuity鈥� to conquer rather than to commune. They are the men who sired our presidential candidates, our corporate leaders, our college provosts, and our neighborhood vigilantes. These are the cowards who, rather than build a nation, stole it all to begin with.

In every crisis, these cowards retreat to their safest places. They return to the old ways, never straying too far from their forefathers. When times are most challenging, these men turn toward whiteness, toward maleness, and toward power. That鈥檚 the mark of a coward. They always choose the easiest thing.

Living amongst these cowards means that the rest of us are always called upon to be courageous. I talk about this in my book Black Women Taught Us, when I note that it is always Black women who are expected to save white Americans from problems of their own creation. We are the ones expected to stand up and be counted. We see this now in another election season where Vice President Kamala Harris has been asked to be 鈥溾€� to an entire nation. To clarify: Drew Barrymore essentially asked the Vice President of the United States to be a mammy to the country. It seems like such an odd request from a white woman who could simply use her own power and privilege to create the change she wants to see.

So it is unsurprising鈥攂ut also notable鈥攖hat young people of color have been with the struggle of the Palestinian people, according to a . Solidarities between the Palestinian people and Black Americans have long existed and have only strengthened in recent years as the militarization of U.S. cities and the repression of protestors have become increasingly aggressive. Many Latine Americans are still being affected by the Trump administration鈥檚鈥溾€� immigration policies, which separated hundreds of children from their parents at the U.S.鈥揗exico border and placed them in cages. were instrumental in ending this policy, though Biden has reinstated some of Trump鈥檚 border policy. These past few years have shown that, while cowards may have power, the rest of us do too.

The Matrix remains one of my favorite movies of all time. Of the three-part series, it is the film that, I believe, seeks to tell the most truthful story about life in the United States. In high school, I learned to pair the film with Paulo Freire鈥檚 Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In the book, Freire examines the ways that oppressed people can overcome their subordinated positions in an effort to find liberation. The connections between Freire鈥檚 theories and The Matrix are most clear when Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) tells Neo (Keanu Reeves), 鈥淭here is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.鈥�

Many of us learned to walk the path before we knew what our path was. That鈥檚 the gift and curse of living in relation to powerful, cowardly people. In many ways, we find and systematize new futures, new possibilities, and new ways of being simply by surviving this white, heteropatriarchal, capitalist world. And, while cowards surround us, we manifest and facilitate new futures completely independent of them.

This past weekend, President Joe Biden stepped down from the Democratic ticket and endorsed Vice President Harris as she embarks on her own journey to the White House. While some will see this as a courageous act, it is important to remember that these white men often only do the courageous thing once their backs are up against the wall. And, though this decision is the right one, it doesn鈥檛 change that we are being forced to choose between imperialists who have yet to speak against genocide. Harris鈥攁s vice president or as the potential future president鈥攈as yet to show us if she will have the courage that so many of us have already amplified these past 10 months.

This is yet another moment where we are called to be courageous. I鈥檓 not worried that we won鈥檛 rise to the challenge. I鈥檓 just tired of us having to do the work for cowards who intentionally put us all in harm鈥檚 way. But I鈥檓 an abolitionist and Afro-futurist, so I know we will win. On the way, we just have to remember who our people are. And, more importantly, who our people are not.

Jenn M. Jackson is a queer androgynous Black woman, abolitionist, lover of all Black people, and assistant professor at Syracuse University鈥檚 Department of Political Science. Their books include Black Women Taught Us (Penguin Random House, 2024) and the forthcoming Policing Blackness (University of Chicago Press, 2025).

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