I spent Christmas Eve 2023 remoted within the spare room of a borrowed Southern California dwelling, hoping to maintain my 3-year-old and her 100-year-old great-grandmother protected from COVID-19, which I had examined optimistic for that morning.
As I nursed my prescription cough syrup and self-pity, I posted to Instagram, looking for recommendation for my first encounter with the virus. Buddies and acquaintances from throughout the globe responded with messages of assist, remedy strategies, and even one of the best model of lozenge to counteract the metallic-tasting uncomfortable side effects of Paxlovid. It was a poignant reminder of the straightforward however enduring energy of connection. However as I welcomed a brand new yr in isolation, watching movies of celebratory fireworks interspersed with real-time footage of bombs exploding in Gaza, I couldn’t assist however grapple with the complexities of our deep connections—and divisions.
This subject goals to discover that nuance, particularly in a world the place expertise has elevated our capability to attach with folks across the globe extra shortly and simply than ever earlier than. But loneliness, polarization, and misinformation are additionally at historic highs. And as Reina Sultan writes within the lead characteristic, even digital areas that have been as soon as fertile floor for grassroots organizing are being surveilled, censored, and restricted as governments and companies tighten their grip over how we join, talk, and manage.
However we’re not powerless. Juliet Kunkel affords sensible suggestions for shielding our biometric information within the post-Roe period, whereas Sara Youngblood Gregory lifts up methods LGBTQ persons are creating religion communities that acknowledge queerness as a blessing, not a sin. And Gabes Torres explores the rise in people looking for intercourse remedy to enhance their connection to their accomplice(s).
In fact, the ingenuity required to take care of connection and tradition within the face of oppression is nothing new to numerous traditionally excluded folks, together with Indigenous people, who’re adapting their very own timeless traditions for the digital age, as charlie amáyá scott shares of their lovely op-ed about Native storytelling on-line. And Jenn M. Jackson returns to the pages of YES! with a highly effective private exploration of how their connections to their roots have been severed by the trans-Atlantic slave commerce.
Connection is central to our humanity. It helps floor us in neighborhood, orient our particular person and collective ethical compass, and make sense of a world that may typically appear mindless in its cruelty. Our hope is that the tales on this subject encourage you to proceed looking for the sort of significant connections—each throughout and inside distinction—that may assist gasoline the social change we so desperately want.
In solidarity,
Sunnivie Brydum
YES! Managing Editor
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Sunnivie Brydum
is the managing editor at YES! An award-winning investigative journalist with a background protecting LGBTQ equality, Sunnivie beforehand led digital protection at The Advocate, Free Speech TV, and Out Entrance Colorado. Their writing has appeared in Vox, Faith Dispatches, them., and elsewhere. She has a level in journal journalism from the S.I. Newhouse College of Public Communications at Syracuse College, and is a co-founder of Historias No Contadas, an annual symposium in Medellín, Colombia, that amplifies the tales of LGBTQ folks in Latin America. They’re based mostly in Seattle, communicate English and Spanish, and are a member of NLGJA, SPJ, and ONA. |
