Famous....(this blew me away, and inspired me)

[shadowkat]

Just found this US Court Decision posted by Lawyers for Good Government on FB. It's inspiring.

Our country has a long and ignominious history of discriminating against our most
vulnerable and powerless. We have an equally long history, however, of brave
individuals—Dred Scott, Fred Korematsu, Linda Brown, Mildred and Richard Loving,
Edie Windsor, and Jim Obergefell, to name just a few—who refused to accept quietly the
injustices that were perpetuated against them. It is unsurprising, of course, that the burden
of confronting and remedying injustice falls on the shoulders of the oppressed. These
individuals looked to the federal courts to vindicate their claims to human dignity, but as
the names listed above make clear, the judiciary’s response has been decidedly mixed.
Today, G.G. adds his name to the list of plaintiffs whose struggle for justice has been delayed and rebuffed; as Dr. King reminded us, however, “the arc of the moral universe is
long, but it bends toward justice.” G.G.’s journey is delayed but not finished.

G.G.’s case is about much more than bathrooms. It’s about a boy asking his school
to treat him just like any other boy. It’s about protecting the rights of transgender people
in public spaces and not forcing them to exist on the margins. It’s about governmental validation of the existence and experiences of transgender people, as well
as the simple recognition of their humanity. His case is part of a larger movement that is redefining and broadening the scope of civil and human rights so that they extend to a vulnerable group that has traditionally been unrecognized, unrepresented, and unprotected.

G.G.’s plight has shown us the inequities that arise when the government organizes
society by outdated constructs like biological sex and gender. Fortunately, the law
eventually catches up to the lived facts of people; indeed, the record shows that the
4 Commonwealth of Virginia has now recorded a birth certificate for G.G. that designates
his sex as male.

G.G.’s lawsuit also has demonstrated that some entities will not protect the rights of
others unless compelled to do so. Today, hatred, intolerance, and discrimination persist —
and are sometimes even promoted — but by challenging unjust policies rooted in invidious
discrimination, G.G. takes his place among other modern-day human rights leaders who
strive to ensure that, one day, equality will prevail, and that the core dignity of every one
of our brothers and sisters is respected by lawmakers and others who wield power over
their lives. G.G. is and will be famous, and justifiably so. But he is not “famous” in the hollowed-out Hollywood sense of the term. He is famous for the reasons celebrated by the
renowned Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shehab Nye, in her extraordinary poem.Despite his youth and the formidable power of those arrayed against him at every stage of these proceedings, “[he] never forgot what [he] could do.”

And it ends with a beautiful poem by Palestine-American Poet Naomi Shehab Nye, entitled "Famous".

N. S. Nye, Famous

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

Comments

[elisi]

♥

[petzipellepingo]

Our country has a long and ignominious history of discriminating against our most
vulnerable and powerless. We have an equally long history, however, of brave
individuals—Dred Scott, Fred Korematsu, Linda Brown, Mildred and Richard Loving,
Edie Windsor, and Jim Obergefell, to name just a few—who refused to accept quietly the
injustices that were perpetuated against them. It is unsurprising, of course, that the burden
of confronting and remedying injustice falls on the shoulders of the oppressed. These
individuals looked to the federal courts to vindicate their claims to human dignity, but as
the names listed above make clear, the judiciary’s response has been decidedly mixed.

So very, very true.

[shadowkat]

Yep.

Oh, if you can and don't mind, please grant me access to your DW journal so I can read your posts like I did on LJ. I miss them. ;-)