K.O. K.O. bY bY
L. Hudson L. Hudson
This essay includes clickable hyperlinks in ORANGE. To view live links, visit bit.ly/akc ko
All links and statistics were accessed on March 20, 2023.
Powerlessness means that my body is not my own, I can’t control my being or my actions. Standing alone, it takes all my strength to stay alive. How can I escape?
I am frozen in fear, watching hellfire on the horizon destroying everything in its path and coming closer. The smoke catches in my lungs. All I see are flames. The fire is at my feet.
I am enveloped.
My skin explodes from the heat and the blaze is forcing itself into my bones. My delicate insides are released from their cage.
I am fire: crackling, burning, destroying.
I am no longer human, a fragile being made of skin and cells and organs and memories and stardust.
I am nothing.
I am empty.
A global pandemic is still raging and my elected officials have refused to protect those most vulnerable. They said we need to move on and put it behind us. Childcare tax credits, temporary eviction moratoriums, mask mandates, expanded unemployment, worker bonuses – all gone.
They think we can shake it off like a bad dream.
I am furious and numb because
GOVERNERS, GOVERNERS, SENATORS, SENATORS, LEGISLATORS, LEGISLATORS,
JUDGES, JUDGES, MAYORS, MAYORS, COUNCILORS, COUNCILORS,
BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD ON ON ON YOUR YOUR YOUR HANDS HANDS HANDS
I can’t shake it off.
I am still haunted by the stories of tenants and people without homes who I talked to on the KC Tenants Crisis Hotline
It was my job, but it was also my passion.
Tenants and working class people had created the Hotline at the beginning of the pandemic when we realized that our elected officials were not fighting for our protections
So, we did it for ourselves
Photo by Julia Cole
I remember Nathan
and he couldn’t pay his rent for March and April because of a pandemic-related layoff, and his property manager was getting aggressive and threatening eviction when the moratorium expired, and Nathan didn’t qualify for stimulus payments because he couldn’t work legally due to his work permit needing to be renewed, but the immigration courts were closed, and he couldn’t get unemployment benefits, and so he was out of options and trapped, and his family was overseas, and then when he got evicted he ended up living week-to-week in an extended stay hotel, and then all Nathan’s belongings and cat were condensed to a suitcase and backpack, and he had to rely on the mutual aid of our community to pay for his housing, and
I don’t know where he is now.
I remember Big Mike
Sometimes the feeling of powerlessness gets too heavy to bear.
Every morning I woke up grinding my teeth and unable to eat for hours. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something else I could have done. Was I in some way responsible for someone dying or having to go back to domestic violence?
I still carry the weight of their stories.
Organizers help others turn their private pain into public power, to find joy in rebellion and solidarity, and to fight back and win.
But where do organizers go when we are worn out and overwhelmed, when we are oversaturated with trauma?
Photo by Jeremy Ruzich
