No More Fairy Tales
We all know the emperor has no clothes.
And yet.
We think that story isn’t about us.
We love a fairy tale.
We love a clear line between good and evil.
In this moment, we grasp for fairy tales to reassure us that good will win out.
And we believe we are good.
No more fairy tales.
How do we go about telling ourselves the truth? How do we intervene in our own narrative devices? What stories have swallowed whole…about ourselves, about heroes and villains, about what it means to win? There is gut wrenching work to be done here.
Say, for example, the fairy tale about the U.S. being a beacon of democracy. That’s a real classic. As we celebrate 250 years of a white supremacist duopoly, we cling to hope that the next election will be different. If we just knock more doors. If we just mobilize the unions. If we just honor our grandmothers by voting. If we just raise more money. If we just…believe.
Our narratives tell us one side is good and one is evil.
But both sides - Democrat and Republican - are the problem.
The fact that there are only two sides is the problem.
The fact that we are choosing between neoliberalism and fascism is the problem.
The fact that both sides choose Israel over Gaza, ICE over immigrants, corporations over the environment, Epstein over girls, and police over Black and indigenous communities is the problem. (And the list goes on.)
The next election will not solve this. It will not break the spell.
No more fairy tales.
Let us understand what it will take to look at the truth after all this time. To see ourselves implicated in it. We are going to have to reckon with beloved myths and false gods.
How do we acknowledge the times when we allowed ourselves to take false comfort, to feel like we were doing something because feeling helpless was worse? Where do we admit that sometimes the spell made our lives easier? How do we face what we’ve already participated in?
Is there room for collective ritual and confession? Do we burn our hopes in the streets? Do we wail in the public square?
We cannot take this on alone. We must tell each other the truth. We must help each other withstand the truth. We must remind each other to refuse the lies. We must collectively make room for the uncertainty of it all, for not knowing the road forward. And when we do, we will begin to find each other.
At the moment when we feel most helpless, afraid and even defeated, we must speak truth to power.
We must tell power that we don’t believe them.
We must say, “We see you for who you are!”
We must do this for ourselves.
We must do this even when we can’t hold power accountable formally.
We must shout it, sing it, wail it, paint it.
And when we do, we will break the spell. We will begin to create a way out of no way. We will start to rewrite the story.
