Q: Do you think racial equality, LGBTQ rights, and social justice are moving forward or backwards in America?
Blow: It’s still this dance (the Cha-Cha). We are now in the midst of a full backlash. What we saw during the summer protests in 2020 after the death of George Floyd – the largest one in the history of civil rights – shocked people. Most people who protested in America were white kids. There’s a direct line between that and cracking down on what people can be taught about racial history in schools and how we talk about transgender kids. What people don’t talk about enough about is how the Black Lives Matter movement intersected with the queer life movement in America. We are now in the middle of the backlash against that. You can almost set your clock by it. It happens every 50 years in America – the great migration of African Americans from the south to the north, the civil rights movement, the first black president, etcetera.
Q: What would you like the audience at Park & Market to walk away with?
Blow: What we have to do is to tell everyone, including our young people, to study how people fight for justice in the periods of the backlash, not just during the movement. To me, it’s a power issue. You have the power to protect yourself and a lot of people don’t. People get tired. For people who are engaged in social justice work who want to be champions of those causes, how do those people behave and what do they do when they are in the middle of a backlash when the country turns its back on you, like where we are now.
You can learn lessons even from the mistakes. You have to stay the course. For example, Rosa Parks had been doing social justice work and training for that work for decades. That’s the kind of commitment it takes during the backlash; when the next wave comes, somebody has to be ready. Everyone is so caught off guard right now and destabilized about how effective the resistance is being. It’s disconcerting.
Q: You are such an incredible champion for so many critical, call-to-action issues. What keeps you going?
Blow: There is a reality in the world that cannot be denied and it is frustrating and infuriating. Waking up in the morning propels you that something is possible. Part of me writing my last book is that idea that you can’t just be hoping and begging and wishing (for change). There has to be a way forward that is in your own ability to change it. I have that idea in my head that it is possible, and that is important for me to put that into the world again. It is important that I did that and it helped me because of my own personal exhaustion with this dilemma. I have children, and when you have children you are constantly trying to figure out a way to make the world a better place for them. The sun rises on them and sets on you. So I try to make things a little better. I am driven by them.
To engage in more insights by Blow, register here for his free Helen Edison Lecture Series event at UC San Diego Park & Market on November 6.